Feature Artist - JUDY BARRASS

JUDY BARRASS

is an Australian artist living and working in Noosa on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland.

Judy works across a broad range of mediums, and is well known for her works in paper and the book format.  Her evocative one-off artist books often make reference to history, place, and the natural environment.  Judy's work is held in private and public collections in both Australia and overseas.

Judy also works with new media as her counter ego Juanita Deharo.

Judy's current obsession is combining traditional paper theatre and articulated paper puppets with animation and digital video techniques, but she also retains a strong connection to the tradition of the artist book.  Her recent work for the exhibition 'Fibro Coast' combines video installation with small paper constructions she calls 'reliquary boxes'.

'In a digital age there is much talk about the death of the book, but I think the elements of books, such as reading, sequence, personal interaction and imagination will survive.  The book may not survive exactly as we have known it, but it will survive both as an abstract notion and an object, in some form.

Artist books have been part of my practice for a long time.  To me, as a visual artist, there is something compelling about the book as an object, and a means of conveying ideas, as a visual message.  It is sometimes, but not always, something you can hold in your hand, smell, see, feel and interact with in a more powerful way than other less familiar art objects.  I like to think of books as a sort of personal installation, to be experienced in an intimate and very individual way, alone, with your imagination.  You need to open the box, look behind the covers, interact with the object, become lost in discovering it, and then it speaks to you.'

ALL IMAGES COPYRIGHT OF THE ARTIST - JUDY BARRASS