Jud Wilson pulls people into his art
If people are going to give you their time, especially in this economic environment, then the artist owes it to his audience to entertain them, just as Jud did when he had his first major show in 1990 when Patti Welch roared into the Tip Top Gallery on a Harley or when traffic was stopped on Pleasant St. as he crashed through a sheet of glass when the cinder blocks stacked atop his chest were smashed by a sledge hammer-wielding muscle man. But that’s only to draw attention to his paintings and digital art. After selling or destroying the original, he makes available very limited prints, often only one or two.
Other one-day-only performance pieces included lying perfectly still for 6 hours suspended in a Jell-O-filled glass tank during his ‘Boy Dead’ exhibit at the School Street Gallery in Rockport, wearing only plastered bandages inspired by Japanese ‘butoh’, another was being chained to two super trucks, then being ripped in half in front of hundreds of people at Bananas on Rocky Neck in 2001.
One of his favorite sculptures was a tank made of two 4’x8′ vertical plates of glass, one inch apart, stocked with live minnows, his statement against the spraying of Malathion.
Jud’s credits include work as a producer on ‘Radio Fishtown’ for Ferrini Productions, eight years of much-anticipated exhibits for the Rockport Art Association’s ‘Arts & Flowers’ show, industrial theatrics for Howard Richardson Design, New England coordinator of ART STRIKE, set designer for Cape Ann Theater, student art teacher, and creating award-winning 3000-carnation parade floats for Smith Hardware & Lumber.
The last time Jud exhibited at the Demeri Gallery, the rules of the show were to keep the artwork to 12×12 inches. He, along with friend Claudia Tibbetts, thrust only their blackened feet through a gold-framed, neoprene-stretched hole in the wall. Now, Jud Wilson will pull people into his art again with a collection of recent paintings at the Demeri Gallery, 54 Bearskin Neck, Rockport, MA, for a one-day exhibit, November 1, 2008, from 7 to 9 pm.