The space in between is where the work is made; where the imagination, thoughts, process, and everything else that happens goes into the making of the piece. The space in between is the state of becoming. Along the way, I have acquired an inner dialogue that directs what stays and what goes as the painting is being built. In the making, the yes and no decisions keep coming at a steady pace as instinct takes over and I am inside the work. Working with uncertainty, chaos and doubt, they become trusted companions that come along in the making of the work. The work starts on the floor, going back and forth from wall to floor as the painting is being made. When hung on the wall, the act of painting stops and the looking and analytical work begins. This up and down process continues until the painting is finished. Inspired by stained architectural walls and atmospheric weather conditions, the work in the studio has become an extension of the body and a reflection of the natural world in its complete wholeness of deconstructed and reconstructed process. The materiality of the pieces embody time and gestures, and channels an open expression and physical presence of a life experienced. The new and soft, the worn and broken, the beaten, healed, and mended parts; the messes that happen through time take on their own kind of abject beauty, and remembrance.

– Judith Geichman

 

The paintings that make up The Floor, The Wall, The Space In Between bring about new vocabularies in the presentation of Geichman’s work. A massive canvas occupying the gallery’s largest wall is the result of making other paintings on top of it over the course of six years. What the viewer encounters is an astounding painting generated by the making of other paintings. Bodily presence manifests rather directly in another large piece, this one on her now signature use of Korean Hanji paper. It’s crumpled, metallic surfaces descend the wall and settle onto the floor—more of a heavy stomp than a gentle cascade of paper. Despite feeling perfectly at home amidst its aesthetic kin, the smallest painting in the show also seems to come from another world entirely. The strange qualities of this very dark but slightly reflective surface hardly settle even after you realize that what you’re looking at is stretched raincoat fabric that was painted on the reverse; a quintessential example of how Geichman allows herself to find each painting.

Geichman’s work is not for those who seek ease and simplicity from painting. It is for people who find painting to be full of possibility and want nothing more than to work for whatever rewards such possibilities might generate. Thankfully, there is no spoon-feeding in a Judith Geichman painting. You will be challenged and you will be destabilized, but you will also be loved and left with a sense of joyous bewilderment that perfectly reflects what Geichman has put into every single painting she has ever made.

 

Judith Geichman (b.1944), lives and works in Chicago. She attended Ohio State University, and received her MFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1978. Geichman’s work has been exhibited at the University Club of Chicago; Regards, Chicago; The Spertus Museum, Chicago; Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago; Artemisia Gallery, Chicago; Rowley Kennerk Gallery, Chicago; Rockford Art Museum; Chicago Cultural Center; Randolph Street Gallery, Chicago; and Julius Caesar, Chicago amongst many others. She is the recipient of a 2023 Fellowship for Contemporary Art grant, two National Endowment for the Arts Awards, and the Margaret Kelmek Phillips Grant. Residencies include the Dora Mara House (Menerbes, France); Gilfelag Residency (Akureyri, Iceland); Visiting Artist, The American Academy in Rome. Recent acquisitions include the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, and the University Club of Chicago.