Judy Hempstead, Local Artist
Judy Hempstead, Local Artist
Tell us a bit about your childhood years?
I spent my childhood living close to the sea above the red sandstone cliffs which lie between Dawlish and Dawlish Warren. A fact which was to be significant when I became an artist several years later. My father was the art teacher at the local secondary school and also the deputy headmaster. I was very much an outdoor person - loving swimming, riding, boat fishing and tennis. I also played netball and rounders for my school. I loved my years at Newton Abbot Art College but then gained a place at Goldsmiths College of Art and found the move to London difficult to cope with.
Was there any other career before painting professionally?
After years as a penniless art student I lacked the courage to endure yet more financial hardship struggling to achieve my ambition of making it as professional painter so followed my father into teaching, first in London and then back in Devon.
Was there any defining point that made you decide painting was what you wanted to do?
No! As far back as I can remember I always wanted to draw and paint. At school I just lived for that one double period of art I had each week.
Who or what was instrumental in your decision to paint professionally?
I could hardly believe my luck when my father asked me if I would like to go to Art College. Art lessons all day and every day! Bliss! As mentioned before after my art training I went into teaching. Then about ten years ago there was a defining moment when it struck me that life is not a rehearsal, time was flashing by at a rate of knots and I just had to take that risk and give up my nice, secure job as a senior lecturer at Exeter College to become a full-time, practising artist.
Where are your favourite places to paint?
At Art College and immediately afterwards all my work revolved around the human form. However when I started painting again ten years ago I found myself calling on childhood memories of living by the sea for inspiration. I am more interested in trying to capture the ever changing moods and atmosphere of our coastline rather than creating photographic images. I am particularly fascinated by the way in which the elements and other natural forces and processes shape, colour and texture both man-made and organic objects. For the same reasons I love the magic of Dartmoor as a subject for my work.
Tell us about your painting technique?
My love of colour, shape, tonal contrasts and in particular surface texture is evident in my work. Whether working on semiabstract or more literal pieces, on stretched paper, board or canvas I texture a surface first using a secret ingredient and different processes. Then I dribble water-colour or diluted acrylic paint onto and into the resulting cracks and crevices. After this stage is dry, I work over the piece with thicker acrylic paint. I am intrigued by the way in which sea mists sometimes swathe cliff faces and attain this effect with sweeps of diluted white acrylic paint. With some large canvasses I complete the piece with slashes of oil colour. Occasionally I collage a surface and/or work pertinent passages of poetry into a piece before applying paint.
Do you prefer to work in the studio or outdoors?
After visiting potential locations and absorbing their atmosphere I make sketches and take photographs but prefer to work back in my studio.
Which medium do you prefer?
I love the challenge of working with mixed media.
Which artists have influenced you?
Turner. Way ahead of his time! Members of the Abstract Expressionist movement such as Rothko, De Kooning and Kline. The abstract artists Burri, De Stael and especially Tapies. The Pop artists Rauschenberg and Johns. St Ives artists Wilhelmina Barns-Graham, Peter Lanyon, Roger Hilton, Bryan Wynter, Patrick Heron and Feiler. Finally the land artist Andy Goldsworthy. There are many other artists whose work I admire but who have not necessarily influenced my own work.
If you are not painting what do you enjoy?
Painting plus everything else which goes with it such as collecting source material, taking work to galleries, getting your work photographed, meeting deadlines, writing text for publication etc. is all extremely time consuming and tiring so I don’t have much time for anything else. I do play the saxophone on a semi-professional basis however. Because of my commitment to art I do not play as much as I used to.
What’s your connection to Dartmouth outside the D’art Gallery?
A trip from Totnes to Dartmouth on the Dart was one of my favourite day trips as a child. My father would occasionally play cricket at the Royal Naval College. I have done band work in Dartmouth. These days I tend to visit the nearby coastline more, collecting source material for my paintings,
What was the best times and worst times in your painting life?
I have three best times, apart that is from the actual physical pleasure of painting. The first was selling my first painting after leaving teaching to become a painter. The second was being awarded a substantial grant by the Arts Council to stage a large, multi media exhibition at the Thelma Hulbert Gallery in Honiton. The third and most recent was being invited by the Bishop of Bath and Wells to stage a solo exhibition at the Bishops Palace in Wells. A stunning location.
Worst times! Hmm! Not many thank goodness. The frustration maybe of being a female artist and having to fit your painting around domestic duties. Meeting deadlines. I sometimes lack self belief, have blank days or days when nothing goes right, for example spilling dirty water over an almost finished painting! But that’s about as bad as life gets now I feel I am fully involved in the world of art!
Judy Hempstead’s paintings can be seen at the D’art Gallery in Lower Street Dartmouth. 01803 834923, www.dart-gallery.com
First Published January 2009 By The Dart