Judith van Bilderbeek

Judith's paintings contain all the basic elements of Expressionism, with their emotive use of colour and distorted, turbulent forms. What sets Judith's bold and colourful paintings apart, however, is their positioning of domestic subject-matter within unsettling, warped compositions. Judith zooms in on everyday household objects such as cars, furniture, pets, toilet bowls and sinks, elevating the status of commonplace objects to create dramatic still lifes which border on the grotesque. Judith's interest in ordinary objects and the possible stories behind them springs from her childhood, when she spent days wandering around the markets and fairs where her mother sold antiques. There she encountered all kinds of abandoned personal belongings and was intrigued by the life they might have had prior to ending up in the stalls. Judith often only shows parts of her subjects and removes from them all unnecessary details, providing only a minimum of information. Her compositions are intentionally naïve, and at times seem to present objects from a child's perspective. These distorted viewpoints are further exaggerated by her use of slightly off-register grids and patterns in wall and floor tiles, road markings, tablecloths and wallpaper. Judith applies thick, sensual layers of paint, densely coating her canvases and allowing the grainy textures of earlier marks to resurface. Her obvious love of paint, her determined brushstrokes and selection of straightforward themes give her work an air of effortlessness and simplicity. It is, however, the product of a long and conscious process that leads to a successful balance of thought and feeling, logic and intuition, fact and imagination. Judith paints with great flair, humour and virtuosity to create powerful yet gently humane works that reverberate with deeper associations. Broadbent gallery