CONTEMPORARY ART AWARDS 

Jude Hotchkiss's bold abstract paintings reference the land, sky and our extreme weather patterns.  Through her colour palette and striking marks, the work provides a moody atmosphere making it a perfect metaphor to depict intense climate conditions. 

​

- Contemporary Art Awards

 

Cataclysm (2017) is derived from ideas about landscape and the sky, with inspiration and focus on the power of climatic phenomena such as hailstorms and bushfires. The works are a group of paintings that seek to express a sense of disruption and tension by contrasting techniques and viewpoints. Vigorous muscular shapes and gestures underscore more finely detailed marks to investigate energies and disjunctions that have a strong emotional component to them. Spatial perspectives in the work are influenced by images from outer space and aeroplane travel, where the viewer is placed at a distance from the image, in an almost god-like position. The firmament is seen from above. There are references to the concept of biblical type wrath in the way the work is envisaged and executed. These paintings articulate a dark testament to the unknown while holding the potential for a new genesis.

 

Colour, texture and direction lead the viewer into a tumultuous and fearsome world of catastrophic forces. Cyclonic forces sweep across stormy vistas. A tsunami of energy threatens to overwhelm a once stable place. Wind, rain, hail and thunder are the forces evoked. The work suggests a maelstrom of duelling power, dark calamitous events that breed an uncertain future in a tumultuous world. The execution embodies a ‘fire and brimstone’ approach, with extreme elements at its core. There is the suggestion of an underlying planet viewed from above, fractured cloud obscuring the geometric makings of a now disappearing civilisation below. Water, sea, sky and firmament are suggested in the heaving gestural marks floating above a heavily lined landscape-like place. Stratospheric sheets of torn white overshadow once predictable territory. 

 

 

A feeling of profound change, upheaval and disruption are embodied in the abstract paintings. There are fragmentary torn shapes, cracked weathered paint areas and significant sweeping energies that fill the picture frame. Large marks override smaller detailed areas that have a more architectural aspect to them. Seen from above, violent forces override the underlying geometries of a once structured and considered place. While dark energies rule, there are signs of hope and peace despite the onslaught. The vast rolling neutral tones are offset by sparing brightly coloured focal areas. Strong black or white forces obscure the flat pastel shapes. What will prevail is unknown, but regeneration is possible in the vibrant suggestive colouring. Movement, speed and colour depict a fast-evolving world. Glimpses of pure force suggest dire consequences in the form of unstoppable energies. Terrible uncertainty prevails, the future is unclear, and the moment is yet to play out, for better or worse.

 

- Jude Hotchkiss