Mary Judge - Geo Thermal Borealis

Dates:  September 13 – October 26, 2025

Reception: Saturday September 13, 4 – 6 PM, public invited

Artist Talk: Saturday September 13, 5 PM public invited

Gallery hours: Thursday – Saturday 11:00 – 5:30, Sunday 12:00 – 4:00

Mary Judge – Geo Thermal Borealis

Kenise Barnes Fine Art is honored to present an exhibition of new paintings and powdered pigment drawings by Mary Judge whom the gallery has represented since 2001.

Judge titled the exhibition to evoke earth and its hidden visual and physical forces. “Geo” has a duality of meaning in the exhibition title: “Geo” (Greek) references earth’s geology and geometries referring to earth’s measurement. “Geothermal” references lava flows, steam geysers and mud baths. “Thermal” calls to mind primordial molten material from below the earth’s surface. Borealis (Latin) adds a reference to the goddess of the dawn and Boreas (Greek), the god of the north wind and australis from Auster, the south wind, bringing the opposing cooler and lighter elements from the atmosphere.

Combining the energy from present and past, this exhibition includes works on paper and paintings. Judge’s well-known series on paper using the spolvero (Italian) technique with powdered pigments and stencils are injected with saturated, energetic color that shifts the energy and innovates bringing the series to new heights.

The exhibition debuts Mary Judge’s paintings on canvas. The paintings include the use of sprayed paint with stencils integrated with the spolvero technique. The paintings are a significant departure from Judge’s work on paper in both scale and material. Inspiration for the paintings include the jagged linear patterns of optical migraines, Native American rugs, Mexican and Middle Eastern patterns found in weaving, architecture, and the patterns in nature such as the Aurora Borealis.

Mary Judge’s work has been widely shown and is in the collections of The National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, NYU Langone Women’s Hospital, New York, NY, American Embassy, Sanaa, Yemen, Cassino Museo di Arte Contemporanea, Cassino, Italy, Columbus Museum, Columbus, OH, Neuburger Bauman Collection, New York, NY, American Embassy, Kazakhstan, Island of Samsoe, Denmark, The Fogg Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, The British Museum, London, England, The Victoria and Albert Museum, London, England, The Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, PA, The Allen Memorial Museum of Art, Oberlin, OH, to name a few. She has permanent public commissions University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics, Iowa City, IA, Wyandanch Train Station, MTA Arts & Design, Wyandanch, NY, Shimei-giku, Memorial Sculpture Bench, Missouri Botanical Gardens, St. Louis, MO, Wall Drawing SP1, Hotel Albornoz, Spoleto, Italy. The artist lives and works in New York and in Italy.

Please contact Lani Ming Holloway, Associate Director, [email protected], 860 560 3085 with inquiries or to arrange a preview of the exhibition.