Jude Hotchkiss spent her early years in an isolated rural environment where the weather, seasons, bushland, wide open spaces and skies gave her a feeling for light, shadow, colour and form. She studied as a mature age student at the College of Fine Art in Sydney and gained a Bachelor of Fine Arts and a Masters in painting. Her love of using colour and texture to express movement and energy in her work has been evident throughout her painting career. She now works in her inner-city studio creating contemporary abstracts, landscapes, still life, portraits and streetscapes based on what is around her. This might be her immediate environment, or memory of a place, or the people close to her. Her work has a unique energy and holds a sense of place, revealing how comfortable and familiar she is with where she has lived, and her local neighbourhood.

These contemporary semi-abstracted works are Jude’s recent paintings and bring together years of experience with using unusual textural marks and representational forms. Recent drawing classes have given her the confidence to use the traditional structural framework of the streetscape to hold looser linework, a wider range of colour, and more distortion. Recent curatorial advice has encouraged her to take more risks using a spontaneous and lively approach to her work, resulting in works that are exciting and unique.

Jude uses digital sketches to help offer textural and colour combinations that might not be suggested when using more traditional media. She continues to use photographs during the process of resolution, and experiments digitally with different tones and marks to bring the work to resolution.

Being a finalist in many art prizes, including the Muswellbrook, Mosman, NEAP, Calleen, Lethbridge Landscape, Hornsby and others both here in NSW as well as Queensland and Victoria, Jude has reached a high standard in the art community. Her most recent solo and group exhibitions have been with the now closed Sketch Co gallery in Surry Hills.

Artist Statement

The architectural features of my inner-city back lanes make interesting and unique compositions. There is a vibrancy in the ordinariness of everyday scenes, and the added street grunge of graffiti along with heritage buildings, wall murals and weathered walls makes this an exciting environment.

The laneways are alive with beautiful trees, garbage bins, power poles and federation facades. I wanted to show the energy and vibrancy of this diverse neighbourhood, a place that I am very familiar with, and comfortable in. Flat areas of fluorescent colour help add intensity and embody the lively spirit of this place. This also adds a street style edginess that is distinctive to the area.

My background in abstract painting is brought into a more representational style with these works. I use strong gestural sweeps of colour and shape to suggest movement and vitality. There is a build up of texture that suggests strength in the structures. Back lanes do not have many cars, and offer an inverted V shaped perspective. This triangular arrangement, looking towards the horizon, gives the work depth and distance. – Jude Hotchkiss