Judith Alder – Finding Her Way
Part 3
Although not central to her practice, drawing has been an important part of Judith’s journey. She is a skilled draughtsperson and is considering how best to use this skill in current projects. She drew the insides of the packaged objects she made as part of The Discovery Room.
This project was the culmination of three years training as a Fine Art Printmaker at the University of Brighton during which time she experimented with different media including handmade paper, book and box works, screenprinting and digital printing.
Part laboratory/part workspace, The Discovery Room, was built by Judith for her Final Degree Show. Here she displayed a large whiteboard which detailed her previous experiments and a new board on which she documented the experiments that she undertook during the exhibition. There were dossiers and catalogues of collected specimens, drawings and diagrams in the laboratory drawers and a series of xrays were displayed which revealed the contents of bandaged objects she had made. These anatomical-like packages with names like ‘cyst’ and ‘constriction’ had been made in response to her study of Leonardo Da Vinci’s notebooks and drawings and her yearning to show, to open and yet to keep safe what is inside, the inner self, the secret/the secreted. She was interested in Da Vinci’s ‘search for the soul’. She investigated too the ‘stone of melancholy’ (1) and wondered about her mother’s struggle with depression. Judith’s interest in medicine and science grew during her elder sister’s training as a radiographer. As a child Judith visited the radiology department and became fascinated by xrays and all things medical.
(1) Ian Hunt in Christine Borland: Selected Works 1990-1999: The Dead teach the living, Zurich: Migros Museum c2000
To be continued
