GERRY JUDAH : ARK ANGELS at Carey Blyth Gallery from October 2021.

The breadth of Judah’s works reflects his personal journey with references to the country and city of his early years, Kolkata, and the changes demanded of a country blasted into the 21st Century, that remains firmly steeped in cultural and religious traditions that colour the everyday, the lives of its people, the cities and the landscape.

Carey Blyth Gallery is showing a portfolio of Drawings and Sculptures in Past and Forward. Monochrome impasto oil pastels manifest as Ark Angels - stellar trees, both rigorous and beautiful. His sculptures are constructs from clouds to temples mounted onto rickshaws. The engineering is patently hand worked with bindings in steel and bamboo confirming a tradition of making anything and fixing everything. Explosively polarised, as with all Judah’s work, they encompass both Past and Forward, with references past to the beginnings of time, to the Tree of Life, and forward infused with apocalyptic inferences that arise from climate change and conflict.

Judah’s work provides a portal into his perceptions of the changing world. History, politics and environment pervade his compositions. Commissioned by Christian Aid to reflect on issues around the impact of modernity in his home country of Bengal, Judah’s work encompasses an ancient and thriving culture of past, fast forwarded into modernity, where Pujas, Pandals and Tabernacles are as much a part of the landscape of daily life as newbuild factories and industry, with all the fall out associated with progress.