Judith Lodge

In 1972, Lodge moved to Vancouver, where she would spend the next decade, and began to work less figuratively than in earlier years. In Vancouver, she was friends with many women who were active in the women’s movement. She had her first entirely non-figurative solo exhibition in 1977 at the Surrey Art Gallery. At some point, Lodge expected to return to figurative work but became preoccupied by the technical and aesthetic possibilities of the abstract format. Her inspiration from nature is greatly credited to time spent on an island off the coast of Vancouver, which was partly owned by a friend. Here, she explored landscapes and notions of water. Although Lodge returned to the United States in 1980, moving to New York after finding Vancouver a discouraging place for artists, she continually aims to recreate the feeling of nature in British Columbia. Lodge notes how dreams and unconsciousness bring things to one’s attention, and claims she began making painted mandalas out of nowhere before finding out she had cancer. Following her diagnosis, chemotherapy, and surgery, Lodge became attracted to photographing trees which had been struck by fire yet were still alive, stating that she felt akin to them. These damaged arbutus trees can be seen in the series Trees Hit by Lightening and Other Fires.

Lodge was one of four daughters born to Jean Lodge in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Her father, James, was a chemist at 3M who enjoyed throwing pots in his free time and built a tiny studio in the basement of their home. From as early as the fourth grade, she would bring a large pad of paper to class and tell people, "You make a mark, I’ll make a drawing from it." She completed a Bachelor of Science at Macalester College in St. Paul (1963). She received a Master of Fine Arts from Cranbrook Academy of Fine Art in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan (1965), where she was the only woman in a class of 12. In the summer following her MFA graduation, Lodge made numerous trips to New York City, where she attended large Alberto Giacometti and Francis Bacon retrospectives. These exhibitions were greatly influential on Lodge as they exposed her to approaches in art practice which were not being taken up by the Cranbrook school at that time.

Lodge’s monumental abstract works, sometimes as large as 10’x16’, partially derive from 1950s abstract expressionism. She typically utilizes a painterly style where thick layers and ropes of acrylic paint are built up in an almost three-dimensional topography, reminiscent of veins or sinews upon the surface of skin. The texture is built up in three or four steps and certain areas may be reworked in the process. Lodge often uses metallic gold, significantly in works from the "Life Jackets" and "Walls of Eden" exhibitions, symbolic of incorruptibility and sacredness, and confronting its audience rather than receding. She also tends to employ a strong sense of grid organization, as seen in the enormous works from "Walls of Eden."

Judith Lodge (born July 25, 1941) is an American Canadian painter and photographer who often explores how the two mediums play off of and inform one another. Her abstract portraits of memories, situations, events, and people are inspired by the unconscious, dreams, journals, and nature. She has worked in Vancouver, Victoria, Toronto, Banff, Minnesota, and New York, where she has lived for more than thirty years.