Imbued with an indelible vibrancy and depth, Harminder Judge makes transportive sculptural works that simultaneously reference Indian neo-tantric painting, as well as the abstract expressionist and colourfield movements of the 20th century. His alchemical process involves layering pigments into pools of wet plaster followed by prolonged periods of excavation; sanding, polishing and oiling. Culminating in expansive modular panels, and ineffable shapes which seem to hover off the wall, colour, forms, and compositions are allowed to reveal themselves and intensify over time.
This all results in a gleaming, vibrating surface where monolithic forms, seething horizons, and emanations of colour rise up from the solid granite-like depth beneath. The interplay between the granular and cosmic playout here and there is a real sense of a material phenomenon taking place, the remnants of which appear both crystallised and in a state of flux. The works as such exist in the present moment; Harminder has referred to them not as paintings but portals that offer us a wide plane to look through, allowing for broader contemplation to take place.
Over the last few years Harminder’s titles often serve as reference points to a pivotal and formative moment in his teenage years. Arriving in Amritsar, Punjab at the age of 15, Harminder made the journey to his family’s village in Attowal where he took part in the funeral rites of his grandfather who had recently passed away. This involved intimate rituals such as undressing and washing the body, preparing the cremation pyre on the family sugarcane farm, tending the burning pyre throughout the night under a blanket of stars, and collecting his Grandfather’s ashes, bone fragments and jewellery in the hazy morning sun. This physical and spiritual transformation of body becoming ash, of material becoming immaterial, physical becoming metaphysical, are concepts that tacitly underpin his practice.
Harminder Judge (b.1982 Rotherham, UK) lives and works in London. He graduated from the Royal Academy Schools, London in 2021. Selected recent solo exhibitions include: A Ghost Dance, Matt’s Gallery & The Sunday Painter, London, UK, 2024; Sea and Stone and Rib and Bone, Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai, India, 2023; Frieze London with The Sunday Painter, London, UK 2022; Rising Skin from Rock and Chin, The Sunday Painter, London, UK 2022; Ankles Absorbing Ash, Humber Street Gallery, Hull, UK 2022; Mountains and Mercies, galeriepcp, Paris, France 2021. Selected recent group exhibitions include: It Never Entered My Mind, Curated by Michael Sherman, Sean Kelly Gallery, LA, USA 2024; Picnic at Hanging Rock Chapter I, Sargent’s Daughters, LA, USA 2024; Curated By: Glossary, Galerie Kandlhofer, Vienna, Austria 2023; The Reason for Painting, Mead Gallery, Warwick, UK 2023; Love Letter, Pace Gallery, New York City, USA 2023; And this skin of mine, Guts Gallery, London, UK 2022; New Beginnings, Blindspot Gallery, Hong Kong, 2022; The Horror Show!, Somerset House, London, UK 2022; A Grain of Sand, The Sunday Painter, London, UK 2021; Am I Human To You?, Jugendstilsenteret & Kube Museum, Ålesund, Norway 2021; Tomorrow: London, White Cube, London, UK 2020; Our Ashes Make Great Fertilizer, Public Gallery, London, UK 2020; At Home In The Universe, Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai, India 2019 and A Plot For The Multiverse, Indigo + Madder, London, UK 2019.