Judi Strahota

In my pocket or sitting on the passenger seat, my camera keeps me company as I chronicle various moments amidst my travels. I either find something interesting as is, or make something interesting when I selectively frame the mundane in my camera’s viewfinder.

I am drawn to the uniqueness found within a moment! First glances find me noticing formal compositions, and as I further explore spatial relationships, I inevitably see inherent visual conversations and poetic narratives.

Photography’s allure for me is its ability to section-off a space, freeze a moment in time, and take that which is originally dimensional and make it a flat composition—all instantaneously, at the click of the shutter.

The foundation of my sculpture making lies in merging my depth of expertise in building with my strong sense of wonder, intuitive response and conceptual depth. As I seek dynamism between form and content, I welcome projects that challenge my skills and celebrate my deft use of space and materials.

These wood forms are built using construction-grade lumber and hardware. My reworking of traditional house-framing methods, usually associated with masculinity, allows me to create these large, curvaceous forms that are typically associated with femininity. Particular to these structures that incorporate a massive change of scale, the building process is math and labor intensive, which provides a beautifully gratifying experience that serves as veins of power, creation and healing.

In creating these artworks – whether by casting, combining, editing, or altering – I’ve recontextualized the meaning found in objects that ignite something peculiar inside of me. This spark leads me to explore liminal states of personal memory and domestic histories, creating transcendent experiences for me.

Combinations of objects may suggest phrases that read more narratively or they may take up house in the realm of the surreal, summoning my desire for the absurd or the dramatically skewed. Thus, the works are often inflected with a sense of poetry or the spirit of Surrealism.

When working with objects or ideas that stem from an exceptional kinship, I utilize the notion of historic reliquaries to house a composition that escapes words and uniquely commemorates connection.

I am interested in conceptual and kinesthetic relationships occurring from the interaction among objects, space, and the viewer. My installations have a sense of mystery, history, and individual story that are often informed by – or are referential to – my past.

In essence, they expand on the memory-inspired experiences of my object artworks, and utilize similar material explorations and story-creating strategies. Combining fabricated works with found objects, and sensitively incorporating space as a tangible element, they are then presented in large-scale or fully-immersive environments that silently embrace and celebrate the viewers’ presence.

Through the pairing of objects and/or images, specific uses of light, particular formal combinations, or mark making with various carefully chosen materials, these pieces are interdependent with a flatter surface and celebrate an exquisite tactile experience.

In some instances, I provide a partial object or actually perforate a surface - both to extend the viewers’ imaginations - to consider a whole suggested by a part, or muse about spaces that don’t actually exist. In other instances, a wall serves as the backdrop for objects’ discourse or is key for the keen poignancy of a simple shadow.

As I explore the materiality of surfaces, they may become landscapes, skins, or unique topographies to discover and ponder.

Through the lens, the familiar transcends and becomes unfamiliar, aesthetic, reinvented and inspirational.

These works are straight-on photographs without the use of Photoshop or similar programs. As I train my camera on moments, spaces and objects in everyday life, my selective viewpoint abstracts the familiar into ethereal or eternal experiences and formal compositions that are greater than the sum of their origins.