I've curated over 200 group art shows in the DC area since the mid 90s, and often I find that the first few pieces chosen often also speaks about the show as a whole.
My formula for group shows is essentially the same, and a proven, successful, and bordering on brilliant technique:
- the group show is a pyramid of artists at various points in their artistic career and development - blue chip, well-known artists;
- a large set of well-known, mid career artists;
- and the pyramid's wide and powerful base: a set of young (not simply in age, but perhaps also in artistic age - think of a 95 year-old artist who just started painting five years ago) artists who need the exposure and push that a well attended, widely publicized, and wildly successful art show offers their young careers.
Judith Peck fits on the top tier of the pyramid - this brilliant painter, like a lot of women artists, took a huge hiatus in her career to raise now highly successful offspring.
Once the kids were grown and out of the nest, she re-assumed her art career with a passion bordering on quiet ferocity... and I choose those words carefully.
Peck's enviable painting skills border on spectacular, but it is how she can focus them on bringing forth artwork full of psychological, allegorical, social commentary that makes it special.
Behold "Coastal Communities", 40x30 oil on canvas.
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| Coastal Communities, oil on canvas 40x30 by Judith Peck |
