Form Over Realism
Landscape Photo
Like a lot of Kim Juda's canvases, "Carnival" started out as a photo. The dark oil painting, which shows two figures dancing under lights in what looks like a club, is a blurred, softened version of a snapshot Juda took.
But, like a lot of Juda's paintings, a little creative license was taken with "Carnival." The figures, two of Juda's friends from Montana State University, aren't in a glitzy dance club ' Bozeman's nightlife wasn't quite that evolved.
"We were in my living room," she said. "But we pretended like we were in a club."
That idea ' turning something most people see as the ordinary (like a living room dance party) into the extraordinary (like a night in Rio) ' is a goal for Juda, this month's featured artist at the OASIS Gallery.
Juda, who's hanging paintings for the show, said the exhibit is more about form than realism.
It's not that Juda can't do realism. Take a look at her portraits or murals, like the mural she painted on the side of a building in Broadway with green grass and an old covered bridge that stretches 12 feet by 43 feet.
The lush, flowering, landscape of the mural is far different from many of her oil paintings. Take, for instance, "Creeping in," a small canvas filled only with a pair of antlers poking in from the right side.
Juda likes the painting better than some of her landscapes, where she's tried to capture vast views of Montana and Virginia scenery.
"Some things are so beautiful when you're there and you see it but when you try to paint it sometimes you lose that splendor," she said.
Juda, a 28-year-old Mt. Crawford native and graduate of Eastern Mennonite High School, isn't painting full time. When she moved back to Virginia she took a job teaching art at a middle school in Manassas. It wasn't for her, she said.
Now, she's got a few odd jobs, including caring for a boy with disabilities, something she's come to view as much as an experience as a job. "It's made my life so much richer," she said.
As much as she enjoys caring for the boy, painting is her passion.
"Something magical kind of happens when I get ahold of a canvas," she said.
That magic causes a lot of odd effects, she said, like a complete stoppage of time.
"The day can pass and I won't even know what time it is," she said. "I just get started and I go.
"It's weird, it wears me out but I haven't really done anything physical."
One thing Juda doesn't like doing is dreaming up names for her paintings. Take "Vegetation," a picture that depicts a cat munching on a houseplant. Her artist statement: "The title for this painting was the most complementary one I could think of.
"I really can't stand titling my work," she said. "It's really hard to fit everything I wanted to say in just, like, three words."
"Untitled paintings drive me crazy," she said. "I like titles, especially when I don't understand something."
Juda's two months as the gallery's featured artist will begin at a party held from 5-7 p.m. on Friday at OASIS Gallery on Main Street. Juda's friend Scott Murray will play acoustic guitar at the event.
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