Judith Peck
Voice, oil and plaster on board, 20″ x 16″, 2017
Steeled, oil and plaster on board, 40″ x 60″ (diptych), 2016
The Divide, oil and plaster on board, 40″ x 30″, 2017
Urban Dream, oil and plaster on board, 36″ x 48″, 2016
Black and White, oil and plaster on board, 11″ x 14″, 2017
The Seed of Change, oil and plaster on board, 33″ x 31″, 2016
Pendulum, oil and plaster on board, 40″ x 30″, 2017
Immemorial, oil and plaster on board, 40″ x 30″, 2017
Artist Statement
I look at the things happening in the world today, and what history has taught us about our broken world, and I can’t stop being drawn into the unreason of it all. What I try to express in my art is that we all have the same hopes and dreams as anyone, anywhere, at any time has in the present or has had throughout history. I depict how, despite our rifts, we might experience healing in a broken world, and how that undertaking is universally human. My goal is that my paintings draw in viewers by portraying individuals with rich inner lives and compassionate personae, and that viewers be in dialogue with the sitter, having arrived together at the same space.
I’m looking for the binding power — opposite of mob mentality — our mutual connections. Although we all can be overwhelmed and feel helpless, our human spirit always possesses hope, even in the most desperate of circumstances. I am happy if I can show a glimmer of our broken yet beautiful human experience.
I use an individual model to represent a life’s broken path, and paint with oils and embedded gessoed plaster shards. I began using plaster in my work years ago, with a very personal piece I was painting around 1987. It was inspired by two of my grandparents, each an orphan at the time, who left behind their former life to come to and find safety in America. I used the plaster shards to represent the broken world they left behind but always carry with them. Then, I started painting about history and that evolved into this more universal message about the meaning and preciousness of life and healing a broken world.
About the Artist
Judith Peck is a Washington, D.C.-area allegorical figurative artist who has exhibited her work in venues nationwide, including the Masur Museum of Art, Monroe, Louisiana; the Lore Degenstein Gallery at Susquehanna University, Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania; and the Foster-Tanner Fine Arts Gallery at Florida A&M, Tallahassee, Florida, which sponsors the Pinnacle National Art Competition. Judith Peck also has exhibited at Aqua Art Miami at the Aqua Hotel, Miami Beach, Florida; the Hoyt Institute of Fine Arts, New Castle, Pennsylvania; and the Principle Gallery, Alexandria, Virginia, and Charleston, South Carolina.
Among Judith Peck’s honors and awards are a “Best in Show” in the Pinnacle competition (2016), a Juror’s Choice Award from Masur Museum of Art (2013), and a “Juror’s Award” in the Figurative National Juried Competition sponsored by the Lore Degenstein Gallery (2016); a Strauss Fellowship Grant from the Arts Council of Fairfax County, Virginia (2011); and three consecutive purchase grants from the District of Columbia Commission on the Arts and Humanities (2016-2014).
Judith Peck’s painting Pulled Over was exhibited in “what’s INSIDE HER never dies” at the renowned Yeelen Gallery, Little Haiti, Miami, and singled out for acclaim by the College Art Association Committee on Women in the Arts. Her painting Urban Dream (2016, shown above) was juried into the “Radical Re-imagining” show in conjunction with An Octoroon at Woolly Mammoth Theater, Washington, D.C., and subsequently was awarded a purchase grant. Two works, Profiling and Steeled (the latter shown above), won “Best in Show” awards. In addition, her paintings Black and White (shown above) and The Seed of Hope can be seen through September 23, 2017, in the “30th September Competition” at the Alexandria Museum of Art, Alexandria, Louisiana. Judith Peck is exhibiting at Hill Center Galleries, Washington, D.C., from June 28 through October 1, 2017.
Paintings by Judith Peck have been featured numerous times in such periodicals as Poets & Artists and American Art Collector magazines; online in iARTisas and Combustus; and in books by Ori Z. Soltes, including Tradition and Transformation: Three Millennia of Jewish Art and Architecture (Canal Street Studios, 2016). In addition, Judith Peck’s painting Veiled Judgment was awarded an “Honorable Mention” in The Kress Project online exhibition at the Georgia Museum of Art at The University of Georgia at Athens and was published in the museum’s exhibition book The Kress Project (2013).
In addition to being collected internationally, Judith Peck’s work can be found in many private collections. It also is in the collections of the Museo Arte Contemporanea, Sicilia; Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art, Altoona, Pennsylvania; and District of Columbia Commission on the Arts and Humanities (DCCAH).
Alexandria Museum of Art “30th September Competition”
Southern Alleghenies Museum of Art
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