Judy Rushin
Judy Rushin works in a wide range of media but sees herself primarily as a painter. Her work has long made reference to the life of children and their architecture of forts, clubhouses, and improvised structures, and has more recently explored the larger world of ephemeral architecture that represents momentary needs not fulfilled by an established system.
about
REVERSIBLE: TEMPORARY REFUGE FOR A BENEFACTOR
The manipulation of materials has always been a key source of investigation, but here I question their extrinsic value as a result of artistic intervention, and how that value is either reduced or heightened by economic conditions or social/political climate.
DISMANTLED: SELECTED PAINTINGS FROM TEMPORARY REFUGE FOR A BENEFACTOR
"In her family's circular rhythm of use and re-use, Rushin's discarded, unwanted paintings are given to her children to become the walls and foundations of forts. Rushin then paints new works in the Fort series [2009], inspired by the oddball structures assmebled by her children. Painted in the shimmering greens of hte landscape, or the brooding black and white of memory, the paintings are rooted in the strange cusp wehre the wild and the cultivated merge." (from an essay by Felicia Feaster)
REVERSIBLE: POTENTIAL SHELTER
The Reversible takes many forms. This iteration explores a shelter that is capable of being but is not yet in existence.
These peices examine the spaces defined by two-dimensional works. I bring attention to hidden, small, in-between places.
I've always made serious work of daydreaming. Between the Woods and the World is a 35 foot daydream about the territories that lay between child and adult worlds described through my interepretaion of childhood play habitats.
The paintings in Connect replicate the architectural dimensions of the exhibition site, a former New Orleans ice factory.
REPLAY ROAD
Replay Road is a website where anyone can share stories about childhood playplaces. Here's how:
1. Go to replayroad.com 2. Close your eyes and remember the color of your bedspread when you were five or ten. 3. Remember your favorite play place 4. Write a story about it and submit it to replayroad.com 5. Read other people's stories
THE CONSTRUCTION OF MEMORY
The mother of Replay Road, The Construction of Memory is a series of five interpretive signs that pair interviews with adults about their childhood play places with early topographical maps of an historical Atlanta neighborhood. The piece explores the idea that personal history is a combination of fact and fantasy, evoking idealized space while referencing specific place.
The strength of the collective is that it works as a power base, usually for social or political change. That’s why I am really only kidding when I use the name, The Lonely Collective.
The Lonely Collective is a DJ mix, using other artists’ works and meshing them into my own images. I call them conscriptions rather than collaborations because I have not invited these artists to work with me. I haven’t even asked permission.