JOYFUL COMPANY
Steel with acrylic paint
“My sculpture is about people: how they look, how they act, how they endure hardship and celebrate joy. The landscape of people is a dramatic terrain of vitality, humor, pathos and intriguing change. I change too, as I try to make sense of it all.” – Judith Peck
PAST WORK
ISOLATION FIGURE 3
This life size sculpture made of plastics, fiberglass and resin is located in the sculpture garden.
This sculpture depicting a seated female figure in solitary introspection, originated as one of three figures on three separate beds situated side by side. Although different from the original concept, the lone figure now seated on a round bench in the Leonia sculpture garden is able to stand alone as a complete sculpture. Each of us is ultimately alone, though from the moment of birth we require the support of others.
The title for the grouping titled Isolation conveys the visual aloneness of each individual even in such an intimate setting as a bedroom: a male rising from his bed demanding to be heard though no one appears to listen; a female straining to speak though she cannot find words to express her thoughts; this woman now seated on the bench who has withdrawn and given up trying.
Perhaps you can sit beside her and tell her there are other ways to be heard and to belong.
For more information please visit www.judithpeck.com
TSUNAMI
This sculpture was inspired by the horrific event occurring in the Indian Ocean in 2004. The sheer power of nature and its assertion over everything we feel is in our control, even as its unparalleled beauty confounds our sensibilities, is what compelled me to create this. I later learned that over 200,000 people perished across 14 countries, the volcanic eruption that preceded it was a 9.1 magnitude and the waves rose to 100 feet.
FALLING WOMAN
Judith Peck, describes her sculptures as being inspired by people – how they look, speak, and act; how they endure travail and tragedy; how they celebrate joy. They address thematic concerns about the choices people make and the choices made for them by history, by chance, and by the intensities of their emotions and experience. The landscape of people is an infinite terrain full of vitality, pain, and joy. It is always changing. The artist is too changed as she explores familiar and unfamiliar places with the tools of carving, molding, and fabrication in hand.
In this video, the artist describes why she sculpted “Falling Woman.”
About the Artist Judith Peck
Judith Peck’s sculptures are in approximately eighty public and private collections. Her work has been exhibited at the International Biennial of Art in Malta, the National Academy Galleries in NYC, the Baltimore Museum of Art; the Pennsylvania Academy; Detroit Institute; New Jersey State Museum and at numerous universities including Yale, Columbia, Fordham, Adelphi, Montclair, and Rutgers. Review “Ladies of Steel,” four over-life size sculptures, were displayed at Dag Hammerskjold Plaza in NYC, sponsored by the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation. An exhibition of sixteen large sculptures was installed on the Robert Moses Plaza of Fordham University, Lincoln Center in NYC. Outdoor works are currently on view in the Art Park at Clifton City Hall, NJ and Leonia, Sculpture Park, NJ.
Judith Peck is professor emerita of Art at Ramapo College of New Jersey in Mahwah. She is author of seven books on creative processes. Titles can be viewed at www.iapbooks.com; she is referenced in Who’s Who in American Art, the World’s Who’s Who of Women, and the Smithsonian Institute’s publication, “Designing Public Art,” published in conjunction with The National Museum of American Art, 1996. Peck holds a doctoral degree from New York University and two master degrees in sculpture and art education from Teachers College, Columbia University.
For more information, visit www.judithpeck.com