Judith standing next to her painting "Monuments"
“I once read that in life, there is much cruelty and terror but also a wondrous and overpowering beauty. Both forces are necessary and together they create a mysterious and remarkable world – a world that dwells at the heart of all my work.”
Judith Jaffe is celebrating over fifty years of pursuing her creative vision in paintings, works on paper, printmaking, and mixed media artworks. Inspired by personal experiences, she creates visionary Surrealist and Expressionist paintings of multihued landscapes, dramatic family scenes, mysterious still lifes, and depictions of women and feminine figures in various settings. Using traditional and experimental media, she often incorporates mixed media and collage into her artwork, and is informed by her lifelong practice of drawing.
My Story
I received my BFA from Tufts University and the Boston School of the Museum of Fine Arts in the early 1970s. During this period, I created etchings, drawings, and paintings of women and babies, which became my metaphors for the fragility of life.
During the 1990s, I experienced the loss of my mother and the birth of grandchildren. The stages of life became foremost in my mind. At that time, I used acrylics and pastels on large canvases as well as monotypes.
The untimely death of my son in 2004 led me to meditate on the need for God. This question became the basis for the series Quest. These works incorporated a multitude of mediums including oil, egg tempera, watercolor, and installation.
With the arrival of the 21st century, I returned to some of my past works, reworking the somber pieces by collaging and painting over them. To my surprise, they have become more uplifting.
In my eighties, I again become engaged with the female figure utilizing various media including collage, watercolor, cyanotype and geliprint. I employ the female figure in my art because I love the energy and spirit of the female form; I enjoy combining natural elements with the figure since it suggests we humans are part of the natural world that surrounds us. My series, Eve & Her Sisters, is based on these themes.
After renting a studio in the eighties, I spent time drawing from models, which then evolved into pastel fantasies containing pods, flowers, vines, and humans mingling or standing alone. Often these diverse images convince one that we are all part of nature.
No matter what the following years have brought to me, I continue to draw from the model. As a child, my very favorite occupation was cutting out paper dolls and their accessories. I would spend hours creating stories about my life and their lives. At the age of fourteen, on Saturday mornings, I went to the Art Students League in Manhattan. There I drew a model named Rosie, who wore nothing but heels and stockings rolled up to her knees and a flower in her hair. Lately, at the age of ninety-two, I have been cutting out figures from these life drawings and placing them in my new work, to illuminate the stories of women today.
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