ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: JUDY SOUTHERLAND

Artist Spotlight is a weekly series that highlights Hillyer Art Space artists.
Judy Southerland is one of our Artist Advisory Committee members at Hillyer Art Space. The Artist Advisory Committee is a group of artists and art professionals who guide HAS with its programming and with this position, Judy curated our August show featuring local college artists. The show features seventeen artists from local schools such as George Washington, American, Corcoran, and MICA.
Judy became interested in curating the show because she felt it was a way to bring expose college students to the art world. “This way a great opportunity for committed students studying visual art to step into the ring in a professional way,” she said. She also felt that college artists would be an intriguing show because the students truly represent today’s society. Judy said, “Curating the show was interesting because various links developed among the works and certain themes emerged which the realities, the concerns, and the particular language of expression embraced by these students at the time in our cultures.”

In her own work, Judy is inspired by the idea of quest in western culture and how it is inspired by fear and desire. Other influences in her art include gender roles and iconic images in 16th century Northern Italian painting and action narratives in historical Japanese painting. As a result, her inspirations are translated into eye-catching mixed media works consisting of painting and screen-printing.
Judy will be featured in two upcoming exhibitions in the DC area. The first show “Vernal Migrations”, curated by Zoma Wallace, will be at the brand new DC Commission for the Arts and Humanities from September 7-December 7. The second show, “LIKENESS/Interpretations of Portraiture, curated by Twig Murray is being held at the Athenaeum in Alexandria, VA from August 11-September 23. Go check it out!