Judy Pfaff is an installation artist who focuses on abstract hybrid pieces of two-dimensional/three-dimensional art that use a combination of sculpture, painting, and architecture. The mateials she uses are steel, fiberglass, plaster, and natural elements like tree roots. She uses these materials to create these settings where everything is distorted and fluctuates between two-dimensional and three-dimensional art. The artwork is made to disturb the viewer’s perception of the environment. Aside from the confusion over a piece being two-dimensional or three-dimensional, the artwork will also use a vast range of colors to challenge what the viewer is seeing. The very existance of gravity is uncertain. The overall theme usually is used to depict opposites such as nature and technology or untouched forests and highly developed cities.
Photographic inspired digital image on MDF, melted plastic, acrylic, wire, honeycomb paper lantern. 125” x 155”
Judy Pfaff was born in London, England in 1946 and moved to the United States in 1959. She was able to receive a BFA from Washington University, Saint Louis in 1971. In 1973, she also received a MFA at Yale University School of art where she was able to study under the company of Al Held, an abstract painter. Originally, Judy was going to be under the same medium, but her own unique style to painting began to present itself during the 1970’s when her piece Yellow Jacket was presented as a painting despite having so many 3d elements such as the long strip of black plastic descending on the piece. As her career progressed, she gained many awards for her artwork. Some of these awards included the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Award of 2004.
Melted plastic, expanded foam, aluminum disc, acrylic. 85” x 42”
BLUE NOTE, 2014
Melted plastics, paper, pigmented expanded foam, acrylic, resin steel, lights
As for where Judy might be in the present day, she currently is residing in Kingston and Tivoli, New York where she continues her work as an installation artist. She presents her work at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. She also has exhibits at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C., the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.
(Detail) Photographic inspired digital image, wire frame, acrylic, melted plastic, aluminum discs, fungus, paper, glitter, Styrofoam, florescent light. 120.75” x 156” x 32”
Photographic inspired digital image, acrylic, expanded foam, aluminum discs, Melted plastic, paper, acrylic, melted plastic, Styrofoam, lightbulbs. 121” x 149” x 21”
Personally, I couldn’t say that I was exciting to do a presentation. However, that is me with most assignments. I was expecting to do the presentation on someone that I actually had no interest in. However, when I found Judy Pfaff, I started getting interested. The way her artwork was all abstracted and how not even its dimensions were absolute caught my attention. It was living in a world where just having an opinion didn’t count. That there had to be more to achieve something. I like it how her artwork created a world for me where not everything was in my control and where I felt my surrounding weren’t meant to be explained or even to be labeled as existent or non-existent. Overall, I enjoy seeing it.
Steel tubing, fluorescent light, street and highway signage, 25” x 30” x 40”
Work Cited:
Art 21: https://art21.org/artist/judy-pfaff/
Artnet: http://www.artnet.com/artists/judy-pfaff/
Artnews: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.artnews.com/art-in-america/aia-reviews/judy-pfaff-2-62655/amp/