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 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, UK. He graduated from the Royal Academy Schools, London in 2021. Recent and forthcoming exhibitions include The Sunday Painter, London, UK, 2022; Ankles Absorbing Ash, Humber Street Gallery, Hull, UK, 2022; galeriepcp, Paris, France, 2021; Am I Human To You?, Jugendstilsenteret & Kube Museum, Ålesund, Norway, 2021; Tomorrow: London, White Cube, London, UK, 2020; Our Ashes Make Great Fertilizer (co-curated group), Public Gallery, London, UK, 2020; At Home In The Universe, alongside Mahriwan Mamtani, Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai, India, 2019
