Judith Page

Night Walk

"...in a real dark night of the soul it is always three o'clock in the morning, day after day."

—Francis Scott Fitzgerald

 

This exhibition, Night Walk, is inspired by the above line from The Crack-Up, a collection of essays by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I recreate these daily moments of crisis in the format of a three-dimensional diary. The title for each sculpture begins with a date and follows with a reference to the form and content of the sculpture. For example, June 26 (Boom Box and Beaver), describes the components of the sculpture while also alluding to the beastliness and sweetness of adolescent sexuality. Other sculptures explore subjects that include loss of innocence, sexual sublimation and the media, viral contagion: design or chance, spiritual isolation and the absence of desire, and the relationship between physical aging and the obsolesce of objects, as well as references to contemporary events such as the collapse of the World Trade Center towers.

Using recycled objects, and real and constructed memories, I selectively reveal aspects of my personal history as I expose the underlying passion-filled dreams, persistent anxieties, and dark desires of humanity. An integral component of this work is the acrylic medium Tar Gel that has both sculptural and painting applications. Mixed with paint, it renders a full-bodied flexible high gloss surface perfect for creating "skins" that resemble, for example, lava or melting plastic. Tar Gel creates a sense of flux that bridges the gap between process and object—a gloriously seductive movement that spills across canvas or paper, and envelops whatever lies in its path. In other words, I want my sculptures to express the relentlessly patient movement of time coupled with the possibility of cataclysm.

Another important component of this work is the selection of objects that are the foundation of each sculpture. Each object is from my personal collection—assembled over a lifetime—and, as such, is imbued with the history of its time, its maker, its giver and my experience with the object over the years. The objects may be used in response to a current situation such as the onset of the 9/11 anniversary—September 11 (Rise and Fall)—or the objects may put themselves forward, an intuitive attraction between artist and material. An example of this approach is the stick in November 11 (Time and Television—a gift from a fellow artist that I have owned for over thirty years—that was altered during its lengthy immersion in a creek near Oviedo, Florida. The patterned surface of the stick acts as a foil to the electric and constantly changing images on a television screen, now sealed with Tar Gel within the unit.

The third critical component of these sculptures is the color pink which represents childish innocence, especially that of young girls. Pink is also commonly used in sweets such as cotton candy and bubble gum, deceptively beautiful before eating, but rendering a quickly dissipating sugar high and an often difficult to remove sticky residue. The consumption and after effects are rather like the memories of childhood, beautiful for a moment, then reality arrives as a disruption in your digestive system or a blob on your shoe.

My painted and digitally debased photographs, which are also included in this exhibition, are collectively titled, Dreams of Power. The subjects are contemporary political figures who shrink, fade and re-emerge before the eyes of the public. The ambition, dreams, and presence of these politicians will eventually be blotted out by time and memory—similar to the ambiguous puddles of pink Tar Gel that blot out sections of the photograph. Dreamers, however, as Fitzgerald suggests in The Crack-Up, retreat into their dreams hoping that "things will adjust themselves by some great material or spiritual bonanza." Page's politicians are caught between the aforementioned hope of resurrection and the eventual disintegration of personality, their liquid ambitions passed on to succeeding generations.

Judith Page, 2010