ABOUT THE ARTIST

 

Excerpt from Ginza Miyuki Gallery Exhibition Catalog (August 2004, Tokyo, Japan)

The role of painting within current America is a curious one. The visual arts continue to encompass new media and techniques, such as video and performance; the painter working within a two-dimensional context has become a rare breed. As such, the trend has increasingly been painting that is driven by ideology, with underpinnings that are often specific to gender or social-ethnic background. Undoubtedly, much of this reflects vicissitudes of America in the late 20th and early 21st century. Nonetheless, paintings that appeal solely through content alone – line, shape, color – often seem less prevalent in terms of public exposure.

The paintings of American artist Judith Anton are, in this sense, pure. The contemporary abstract works in this catalogue were created in 2003 and 2004, the medium being acrylic on watercolor paper. The imagery is one of allusion rather than statement; her unique sense of form and space combined with her use of color brings a rare richness and power that is refreshingly open and free of ideology. The results are translucent, rich, and delicately textured, bursting with color and movement. They invite rather than demand the viewer’s attention.

Biography is the key to understanding Anton’s creative process. An American who has spent many years including childhood living in Japan, she is astonishingly bilingual. Having seamlessly integrated the social customs and “feel” of both countries, she moves easily between two disparate cultures. The results are works of an inner synthesis, with qualities that transcend the boundaries of any one specific culture, yet somehow remain curiously and firmly rooted. While acknowledging the influence of Klee and Kandinsky, and other abstract artists such as Mondrian, Ellsworth Kelly, Miro, Picasso, and  Jackson Pollack,  Anton describes her interest in both Japanese and American culture and art as central. Exposure to Japanese Mingei folk art in Kyoto as a child, the aggressive modernism of Japanese architecture and art of Tokyo in her teens, and the Bauhaus-influenced abstract styles of America in the 1960’s and 70’s, all of these have coalesced into her current works. There one can find geometric shapes and calligraphic lines rendered with the simplicity and clarity of traditional Japanese styles, combined with an organic energy and American dynamism of movement as the shapes dodge and dart about the canvas. At other times there is a floating quality and serenity to the lines and forms, with a sense of Japanese quietude.

Judith Anton hopes that her works convey the joy of human existence at a very basic level that will touch the heart of the viewer in a positive way. Her increased public exposure indicates that in this she has been very successful. Her pieces are favorites with collectors, architects and interior designers. The appeal is international, spanning the U.S., Asia, and Europe. Commissions have also come her way, most recently for the Southern California Edison Company. "Three Dancers", the "Wind Dance" series, and the "Movements" series hang in their Los Angeles headquarters building. Other international corporate clients include Imagica Media Inc., Japan and Video Arts Music, Japan. Anton's works have also been featured in publications, such as National Geographic, Architectural Digest,American Craft, and Art Speak Magazine.

Judith Anton currently resides in Irvine, California, where she has her studio. She is married to internationally acclaimed jazz pianist and composer Kei Akagi, who is also a Professor of Music of the University of California. As a first-generation Japanese-American, his biography parallels her in remarkably similar ways, allowing the two to share a symbiotic life of mutual inspiration and creativity. Her visual and his aural works are often mirror images of the emotional and dynamic content contained within the creative moment, encompassing the cross-cultural heritage that forms the backbone of their artistic endeavors.

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