Artist returns to Spark Week
After almost a decade, artist Judy Darragh returned to Spark Week to present a collection of her pieces.
At first Auckland artist Judy Darragh did not know she was an artist – it took an exhibition to define herself.
Darragh is known for her bright sculptural collections of found objects, recycled items, collage, and poster art.
She was expecting a small number of people in the audience as Catherine Fitzgerald was speaking at the same time about her movie The Orator.
“I was expecting 30-40, that’s a good average crowd, and there were at least 90 people there at 9.30 in the morning. Catherine Fitzgerald was on at the same time and people still turned up. It was really pumping.”
This is the second time Darragh has presented at Spark.
“I came and did a talk almost 10 years ago, when it was in the old Wintec building and it was in a lecture room, it has really rich history,” says Darragh.
Darragh studied graphic design at Wellington Polytechnic and said that at first she did not know the difference between a designer and artist; she never called herself an artist until she realized she was one.
“Making these fundamental objects and teaching full time, I guess the first time I actually realized I could call myself an artist was when I put a proposal into art space and basically took all my objects, put them into the gallery situation. By changing the context of the space I was working in, I was like ‘oh my god this is art’ and then I started to call myself an artist. I wasn’t sure what I was up until that point. And that would be 30 years ago.”
Darragh has an exhibition up at the Waikato University Academy of Performing Arts until October 5.
The exhibition displays her six large ‘SCIFI’ pieces, made from cinema PVC banners.
“The first thing I do when I get these banners is lay them on the ground and paint over all the texts on the banners and paint out the faces to basically make them a blank canvas, then I build them with spray paints, tapes, ink, dye, paint, I just attack the imagery with these materials,” explains Darragh.
Once the exhibition closes at the university in October it will then go up to Auckland and is on show at her dealers, Two Rooms.
