Gerry Judah
BENGAL : The Four Elements
July - October 2020
“A tiny, perfectly made metal rickshaw supports a billowing, cloud-like structure; another hold aloft a branching, spired form. Is it meant to suggest a burnt-out cathedral? No, it’s the skeleton of a coal-fired power station. Another micro-rickshaw carries an unevenly bulging, asymmetrically latticed shape that represents a rock. And the spiral? A portal of some kind - a Blakean door of perception?”
PRESS RELEASE
Gerry Judah’s BENGAL : The Four Elements opens at Grizedale Forest Gallery on 21st July 2020. This solo exhibition brings together a striking body of work built over nearly a decade and originally commissioned by the Arts Council of England. Visually forceful and sensitively crafted, Gerry Judah's works poetically engage with prescient issues of climate change in India whilst also exploring the artist’s personal history. Drawing on essential natural elements in his exquisitely detailed sculptures, Judah constructs the intangible: clouds shift, waves splash and smoke rises. Whilst a far cry from the rural farmland of Bengal and historic city of Calcutta, it is no surprise that these drawings and sculptures (2013 -2020) have been curated within the rural landscape of the UK’s first sculpture forest.
Hazel Stone, Arts Development Manager for Forestry England at Grizedale Forest, said:
“We are delighted to host this exhibition at Grizedale Forest bringing together this significant body of work which has been developed by Gerry Judah over a number of years since returning to India in 2013. Visitors to the gallery will gain insight into a sculptor’s process, from thinking through ideas and forms through drawing, to the production of beautifully crafted sculptures. A common theme is the rickshaws from which each response to the individual elements flow as the artist brings together his childhood memories and thoughts on climate change into dynamic drawings and fascinating forms.”
The exhibition coincides with the publication of Bengal: The Four Elements, which includes an insightful catalogue essay by Jay Merrick (former Architectural Critic of The Independent). Examples of the Bengal series have recently been exhibited at the High Commission of India and Wolverhampton Art Gallery. Other major works by Gerry Judah are currently on permanent display at institutional venues ranging from the Imperial War Museum to St Paul's Cathedral, the House of Wisdom in Sharjah UAE and international sculpture parks such as Cass Sculpture Foundation, UK and Gibbs Farm Sculpture Park, New Zealand. The gallery space at Grizedale provides a perfect setting to view these thought provoking works. The exhibition is free and open from 11am until 3pm daily.