Girl Outside Maria Sophia, 2009

Judy Clark  

2000-present Experiments began with various media and materials in order to explore invisibility, not seeing, not being seen, and the subject of camouflage generally. This period of experimentation was part funded by a major award from Arts Council in 2001 and followed through to current work, which has developed from some of the processes that I experimented with. See gallery 1990s Book-based works, including 'The Human Brain in Outline' plus works using photography and various sculptural materials.

A solo exhibition The Occupier in Pallant House Gallery Chichester in 1998 included 'Shades of Grey' packets of grey powder (ash and plaster mixed) and silicone casts. 'The Occupier' photogaphs of a blue sky encased in plastic and strung on wire across the wall. 'Core' sandbags, black fibre and willow twigs. An Arts Council grant enabled a collaborative project A Rare Sighting for Cable Street Gallery in London in 1999.

The installation used sound sensors, a soundtrack and amplifiers, sandbags, brown paper bags. I worked with sound composers and electronic engineer. Following this in 2000 I was commissioned to design a series of wall-hangings for three of the smaller conference rooms in Portcullis House Westminster. 1980s Studio in Carpenters Road, Stratford, the work used a variety of media including found and collected materials and packaging. Twenty different kinds of white powder were packaged in a work called 'Twenty Household Substances'. A collection of brown paper envelopes sent by the Department of Social Services were filled with small handfuls of sand for a piece called 'Messages from the Desert'. Plaster casts of body parts resulted in 'Soft Bags'.

During the Miners Strike of 1984, I found and collected together used matchboxes which bore the marks of repeated use. These were copied and enlarged by hand to make 'Strike' a set of five drawings. 1982 saw the completion of Antenna Project, a set of drawings of TV aerials from seven European cities.1970sThe Slade postgraduate show in 1973 led to the solo exhibition Issues the same year with Garage Art, in London's Covent Garden.

The work in the exhibition used bodily detritus to explore ideas about identity, pollution and taboo. It was original and unusual at the time and was influential, particularly in relation to women artists. Work from the Issues exhibition was purchased by the Tate and Arts Council, and the work appeared in Art As A Thought Process at the Serpentine Gallery in 1974, Reflected Images at Kettles Yard in 1977 and more recently in Live In Your Head at Whitechapel Art Gallery in 2000. For more information about the exhibition and the responses to it, see the bibliography below