Click to see current work:  JUDY KEENE

JUDY KEENE
NUMINOUS LIGHT

New Paintings

Durham — Numinous Light, new paintings by Judy Keene opens at Craven Allen Gallery on Saturday, March 16^th, with a reception from 5 to 7 pm.

While the influence of expressionist and color field painters is readily apparent in Judy Keene’s paintings, with their luscious surface textures and enigmatic compositions, less obvious may be her study of the palettes and paints of Renaissance artists.  Keene’s professional background in the museum world has given her an appreciation for the subtle color harmonies of the old masters; she even crafts some of her own pigments from raw materials.  Keene’s paintings range in scale from intimate small works to expansive large-scale canvases.

The show continues through May 4^th.

Craven Allen Gallery is located at 1106 ½ Broad Street in Durham.  Gallery hours are 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Saturday.  For more information, please call the gallery at 286-4837 or visit www.CravenAllenGallery.com.

JUDY KEENE

STATEMENT

In my new paintings I continue my exploration of the resonance of color.  I first encountered the term numinous in reading the 18^th century poet and philosopher Novalis. He used it as an adjective meaning “a strong spiritual quality,” a sense used by other art historians, and one I feel describes the way I try to think about my work—not in a pretentious or religious way, but in the sense that two-dimensional art can sometimes help us find meaning beyond our three-dimensional world.

I work primarily in oils on linen, juxtaposing luminous passages of saturated color with more muted tones.  I paint intuitively allowing shapes to appear and dissolve under layers of pigment and glaze. Using large and small brushes and palette knives I combine forms of opaque and transparent color, layering, adding and subtracting forms, building on the compositions of previous works in a continual search for balance and unity.

While my debt to abstract expressionist and color field painters is obvious, my background in art history and museum work has had its own influence. I experiment with the subtlety of lost and found edges using some techniques derived from the study of classical academic painting.  I am fascinated by the color harmonies of Renaissance painters, have copied old Master paintings in situ at the Louvre, and continue to study traditional figure and landscape painting.  Even with the fine paints readily available, I sometimes grind my own pigments to get the colors I am seeking. The Chinese painter Zao Wou-Ki, and his mark making has further influenced my work.

The paintings in Numinous Light are not landscapes in any traditional sense, but they are rooted in a time growing up when I first experienced the power of nature. My father was a prospector of rare and precious metals in the American West and my appreciation of this terrain runs deep.  I define forms in my paintings using calligraphic gestures found in the natural world, whether it is a long-distance view, or an intimate pattern found in an agate. Finally, while I can speak to my influences, the work tells its own tale.

ABOUT JUDY KEENE

Judy Keene was born in Texas and graduated from the University of California, Riverside, with a BA in Art History.  She has worked in museums including the Henry Art Gallery in Seattle, the Freer Gallery in Washington, D.C. and the North Carolina Museum of Art.  Her previous show at Craven Allen Gallery was named one of the Top Ten of the Year by Blue Greenberg in the Herald-Sun.   She lives in Durham.