Judith Geher doesn’t paint you the whole picture. For her upcoming solo exhibition at Parts Gallery entitled Courage (running Nov. 9 - Dec. 4), the Toronto artist leaves the wholesome expressions of model-esque female faces half-blank, with pencil marks exposed on wooden supports. Formerly an architect and part-time artist, Geher seized her dream after being laid off last November and has since been painting non-stop. In these times it's an economically risky move, but now with her third solo exhibition and increasing demand for her winsome, sad-girlish, abstract-figurative work, Geher doesn’t seem to be complaining. Who needs more architects, anyway?
We sat down at Studio Geher to discuss girls with guns, the idealized feminine aesthetic, and whether art should be beautiful.
Who are your subjects?
For Courage, I used models from fashion magazines as references. But in a way, they’re self-portraits. They represent things that I would like to be or things that I see in myself. The children that I’ve painted in the past were children I knew, like my niece. Sometimes, I used pictures from the internet. There was one—a painting that I did of a young girl hunting—called The Huntress. I don’t think people really enjoyed it because my gallery gave it back to me. I think that the subject matter was a bit challenging; it made people really uncomfortable. The expression on her face was like, “Why am I doing this? Why am I here holding this gun.” I think it’s a comment on society telling you what to do. But I still have it. I like it.
Most of the women you paint seem indifferent or detached. Is this intentional?
I tried not to get too many images of extreme facial expressions. I was really trying to be subtle, to capture a sort of quietness within a person. They might appear detached, but it’s really polite. They’re not trying to get in your face.
In the artist statement for Courage, you mentioned that these paintings hold your thoughts and desires towards the idealized feminine aesthetic. What exactly are those?
I mean, I’m not going against that ideal. I like my fashion magazines. A lot of people say that’s the way society is telling you to look, but I like it. I think it’s beautiful. I’m just putting out the way I feel about it. I could lie to people and say, of course I’m not that way. I could jump on that bandwagon, but it wouldn’t be the truth. Am I weak? Am I mistaken? I don’t know. It’s risky truth. I was talking with a guy last night who was interviewing me. He was a Spanish artist living in Berlin and we talked about beauty in art. He said that in Berlin—and I’ve heard this before—art and beauty do not go together. You cannot say that you make beautiful art. I don’t know why; maybe it’s considered shallow. He said that my kind of painting would be a no-no in Fine Art these days. I’m not so sure how on point he is about that. If people say your work shouldn’t be beautiful, because that’s not art, I don’t know what to say to that. I’m a little lost for words..
Is it instinctual that you always choose to leave the support you're using—like the wood here—exposed?
I think the pencil and wood showing comes from my design and architecture background. I have an appreciation for the structure and the process, so I like to show that sort of thing. The drawing is as important to me as the painting. I used to paint with acrylic on exposed linen, because I was dating this guy that was allergic to everything. He wouldn’t let me use oil paints. But when I got rid of him, I bought a whole load of oil paints, like a bag full. Since you can’t use oil paints on linen, I started using wood.
How do you see your work evolving in the near future?
I have this idea lately where I want to paint full body shots from fashion runways. They’re kind of like mugshots of beauty, so utilitarian. Sometimes when I go through them, I find a girl that has just moved in the right way at the right time, with an expression that’s more than just about showing the clothes.
In some of your paintings from 2007, you featured young girls with exaggerated breasts and bums. What were to trying to depict?
It was my friend’s daughter’s birthday party and the girls decided to take balloons and put them in their tops and bottoms. I just thought it was the funniest thing. I really wanted to paint that.
Quite literal. I love it.
Yeah, a little bit perverse, a little bit weird. I like that. And I remember, the paintings were criticized too by people because of the subject matter.
Didn’t that come as a shock? I can’t imagine that you expected the paintings to be controversial in any way.
No, not at all. (Laughs.) It wasn’t my idea, it was all theirs.
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