Judy McCaig: Wilderness of the Unknown

Artist list

Wilderness of the Unknown

Free, freedom,
flight,
soaring birds,
singing winds,
heat, fire, haze,
long black shadows
Leafless trees,
branches silhouetted,
sun bright shines through

Slanting dusk light,
moon pale in the dark of the night,
distant rain clouds
lightning, thunder
monsoon skies,
scarcely flowing rivers,
motionless stone
landscapes
sculpted by time,
dry rocks
glisten,
washed anew.......

Desert, heat, dead trees, bareness, shadows, silence, stillness, vast landscapes, huge skies, storms.

Different materials at different times start attracting me-
I am searching, with no clear idea as yet,
I am stockpiling.
For the latest pieces it was steel, crystals and uncut stones in certain tones and colours which drew me.
Many fragments and sketches are turned into three-dimensions, experimenting with the materials and techniques that currently inspire. I may draw into perspex, carve it, engrave formica, add paint, use enamel, resin and gold leaf, set stones or glass fragments to achieve what I need. Improvising, playing with the fragments, shifting shapes around, introducing new components. The results are a mixture of spontaneity, instinct and that seed of an idea.
I enjoy that a piece can take or guide you places where you hadn’t previously thought of going, when that accidental rightness happens or a mistake makes you see another way, gives you a new idea which would never have occurred had it not been for the mistake, that fortunate accident. What is left out is essential. Making marks that are my own.
My different working methods also apply to painting, printmaking and sculpture, which all interconnect and develop one from another, size and materials link. Painting, adding textures, mixed media, brushstrokes, rubbing out, painting over, sanding back are all techniques that I use not only in painting. Hints of images emerge, half hidden, fading, disappearing, reappearing. The connections between each of the disciplines every time getting closer.