I last wrote about Jude in 2019, although I have seen her several times since then. At that time I described her as an enigma. Which in any artist is a bonus. Although at that time, in 2019, we’d only just met when I visited her in her Ancoats studio. And she was breathtakingly honest about her mental struggles. How painting helped to ‘fix my head and rediscover a passion for art.’ Her words not mine. I have to quote a further couple of things that she said to me and which I quoted in that 2019 article, in those early days of getting to know her (a little).

 

“I can’t talk about things, so I paint.” And, “Perhaps I relate to art created after a trauma.”

 

At that time Jude was painting herself as a harlequin. Beautifully crafted paintings, because above all else Jude is a very talented artist – which of course prompted my initial contact with her. And now Jude is still painting herself as a harlequin. And…drawing herself as a harlequin. The same question to her that I asked four years ago. Why do you paint self portraits so often and why as a harlequin? Jude: “All art is an autobiography. I see myself constantly.” (I’m not sure whether that was a literal or abstract comment.) Again I’ll quote from the 2019 article: ‘One noted Picasso expert says that, “The harlequin represented an alter ego of himself.”’

 

Jude: “I paint things that I dream, images that flicker through my mind. Situations that I am in.” But let’s dispense with the 2019 words, although mental struggles in 2022 prompted where Jude is now. Her happy place, it seemed to me. Two major concurrent happenings at the end of last year could have led in the wrong direction, but ultimately have proven to be the start of a new chapter in Jude’s life. She was made redundant from her position as Creative Director of a Manchester bar – a job which paid the bills and she had held for 16 years – and was invited to appear as a contestant on Sky Arts Portrait Artist of the Year. When I heard about this, appearing painting portraits live on a TV show was not the Jude that I knew. But she did it and not only that, but got through to the semi-final. That takes real bottle…to coin a phrase. 

 

But it brings exceptional exposure and the bringer of commissions. So those concurrent events meant two things: more work and more time. “Of course it was very upsetting to lose a job that I’d had for so long, but it also meant that all of a sudden I had much more time to work and start to spend time with friends, make new friends. It seemed like all of a sudden I noticed the people who I had worked around every day here at the studios. I had time to visit galleries. I’ve joined the Manchester Academy of Fine Arts…” (I’ll interject here, you don’t join MAFA, you’re elected.) “I still struggle with mental health issues, but I’m progressing through that. Now I can concentrate on my art, rather than fitting it around a day job. Things are good.” A very positive variation to the Jude enigma I met four years ago.

 

Her commissions aren’t, of course, self portraits. I looked very, very closely at a small family group commission that she has painted. And a series of small landscapes. The tiny brush strokes are beautiful and expressive. “I don’t blend,” Jude told me of her technique. And I also looked carefully at a large portrait in its nascent stages. Just an ochre ground of thin oil paint, ready to be developed. I sort of urged Jude (pointlessly…) to leave it as it was, treat it as a finished piece. The pencil lines of next stages of work, sketched over the ochre ground, had in themselves an expressive simplicity. 

 

So, I think, Jude is in a good place with her art. The coffee mug on her desk says, ‘Fuck off I’m painting.’ Precisely. 

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