Harminder Judge, A Ghost Dance

24 May-7 Jul 2024

PV 23 May 2024, 6-9pm

Harminder Judge, Artist's Studio, 2024

Overview

Located just 10 minutes’ walk from each other, Matt's Gallery and The Sunday Painter are pleased to present an exhibition in two parts. The galleries have worked collaboratively to help Judge realise a new body of work that brings the artist’s wall-based plaster pieces into dialogue with new developments with free standing and floor-based sculptures.

'A Ghost Dance' is a show that references funeral rites, processions and the presence of ghosts and spirits. It draws on persistent themes in Judge’s work: life, death, ritual and rebirth, creating parallels between the deconstructed body and the cosmos. 

Judge is preoccupied with physical and spiritual transformation - a body becoming ash, material becoming immaterial, the physical becoming metaphysical. It revisits early elements of his practice, extends recent developments in his work, and opens up new areas of exploration. His work sets into motion dialogues between Western Modernism, Indian Neo Tantric painting, American Transcendental painting and familial funeral traditions drawn from rural Punjab. 

The Ghost Dance of the title refers to a Native American ceremony. This type of circle dance was practised to raise the spirits of the dead in order to have them fight alongside the living to reclaim land from the colonial settlers. 

Over recent years Judge has developed a distinctive and innovative practice grounded in an extended exploration of pigmented plaster as an artistic medium. The plaster sets – freezing a record of its creation in time - the surface is worked, polished and slowly worn away to reveal layers of colour, texture and movement beneath. This process embraces chance, and over time he has pushed it further with each new work. The results are sensual and seductive, with surfaces appearing sleek and shimmering. They have an illusory quality, seeming to hover in front of the wall, suggesting depth, evoking the idea of a portal or doorway and inviting the viewer to stay with them in contemplation.

For Matt’s Gallery Judge will work at scale, developing a monumental, enveloping expanse of material, pigment and colour for the space and setting this into dialogue with new discreet, floor-based semi-figurative works redolent of funereal urns or totems.

For The Sunday Painter, Judge will combine new works on a smaller scale with a new cadaver-like sculpture devised for their space.

A processional performance between the two spaces will take place on the opening night, recalling early performance works by the artist.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a new essay by Susanna Davies-Crook, building on her previous text 'Spectres and Portals: The Work of Harminder Judge', produced for the artist’s debut solo show in India at Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai in 2023.

'A Ghost Dance' at Matt’s Gallery is supported by the Henry Moore Foundation.

Free, no booking required.

Matt’s Gallery
6 Charles Clowes Walk
London, SW11 7AN

The Sunday Painter
117-119 South Lambeth Road
London, SW8 1XA

Artists