On Color Forms: Paintings by Judith Pond Kudlow

 

By Pamela St. Clair

 

Tissue paper crinkled in light glows to fill the canvas. Shadows cascade down draped linens. They narrow the gaze of a young girl in flowing white, fist clenched on hip. A luminescent mystery patterns these introspective narratives, the unseen as essential as any surface detail.

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A Montana native, JUDITH POND KUDLOW currently resides in New York City, where she received her art training. Her working method is based on the nineteenth century academic tradition which emphasizes working from life to produce paintings based on precise drawing, careful modeling to produce the three-dimensional illusion, harmonious and accurate colors and values, and compositions based on time-honored rules. Her subjects include figures, portraits, still life, and landscape. Her interest in classical drapery studies has led her most recently to produce a series of paintings using contemporary draped subjects, primarily shirts. Her studio is a second-floor loft in a century-old cabinet maker’s building in East Harlem, which is also the location of her atelier, The Harlem Studio of Art: NYK Academy, opened in 2002 with Andrea Smith, a Florence Academy graduate.

 

Bibliography

 

Max Gillies, Fine Art Connoisseur, "Focusing on Fabrics," Sept/Oct 2015

Austin R. Williams, American Artist Magazine (special Studios edition), "Create an Intimate Atelier," August 2011

Roger Kimball, Wall Street Journal, "Classical Realism: Antidote to ‘Novelty Art’," May 29, 2008

Stephen Doherty, American Artist Magazine, February 2007

Roger Kimball, The New Criterion, "Bright Spots: The Harlem Studio of Art," May 10, 2006

American Art Collector, March 2006

Gary Shapiro, The New York Sun, "From Homer to the Present," October 15, 2005

James Cooper, American Arts Quarterly, "Exhibitions - Harlem Studio of Art," Spring 2004

 

Judith's evocative images are painted in the classical tradition, which emphasizes working from life, drawing with precision, balancing harmonious and accurate colors and values, creating the 3-dimensional illusion through careful modeling, and arranging compositions according to time-honored rules.