Comfort Zone | Judy McIntyre

Some artists position themselves clearly and absolutely in the space of their primary
medium. ‘I am a painter’ Their concerns are rendered through painting and painting
only. Others are happy to push at the boundaries of traditional painting in order to
extend their conceptual ideas. Many play and test previously accepted traditions of
mark making and cross into ‘in-between’ spaces to hold conversations about the
history of traditional painting and sculpture, to question their formal concerns and to
push these traditions into other domains-installation, architecture, the site specific
and the environmental. What these artists have in common is their establishment of
an art-territory that marks out a space that creates their ‘home’, their place of
comfort, and their identity.
The tactile nature of materials such as found objects and textiles have always
underpinned my work within the medium of sculpture, and references to the human
form will often occupy a place in my work. But I am also a ‘drawer’ and have
returned to my comfort zone of drawing for this exhibition.
Materiality and process are methods that guide my drawing practice. They demand
patience and trust, expectancy without expectation and an acceptance that I don’t
have full control of what will be revealed. I’m trying to let go of control through the
immediacy of mark making, exploring the in-between spaces of something and
nothing, temporal spaces of past and present and the becoming of, to be here but
not to be here, to be present and to be absent. The space of being human across
time.