Jude Wainwright
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Interview by James McColl
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Published in July 2024
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In preparation for her first major solo exhibition FACE-OFF, Jude Wainwright and I sat down to discuss the show, her new paintings and Judtopia; the realm in which Jude’s work exists. Jude and I have had a series of conversations prior to the opening of FACE-OFF and I’ve had the chance to see first hand the development of these works, alongside Jude’s developing practice.
Jude’s paintings are self portraits drawn from dreams and flashes of thought, created in order to reconnect with herself. Rituals provide the impetus for these works, with each painting exploring repetition and habit. In FACE-OFF these themes are further explored in new and deeper fashions, expanding on her previous works: childhood memories, nursery rhymes, folklore, nature.
Venture forth into the uncharted expanse of Judtopia, where a new land awaits!
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When we first started talking about the exhibition that became FACE-OFF, you had booked Saan1 with a plan to create an entirely new series of work. How long have you been working in the studio for? Has it been the entire six months?
Well, I didn't start painting anything for FACE-OFF until December [2023]. I think I booked the show at the end of September but I was just thinking, it’s all just been ruminating, like the title. I didn't want to put brush to canvas before I got things settled.
I think they [new paintings] all stand alone, I don't think there's any that don’t. I painted them all at once and I really liked that method. It’s very stressful, but I’m definitely going to keep doing that now instead of one at a time. I was getting a bit worried because I was painting and painting and painting but struggling to like anything I was doing at a certain point. Objectively, I could see that they're fun, but I couldn't connect with them emotionally. I think it was my brain going no! there's too much to deal with here, and I was worried the process was becoming a bit like a production line. Everything was very robotic. A phrase that I keep telling myself is just trust the process, because this isn't nearly done [points to Joining The Crowd painting]. I struggle if something is too easy, I struggle to see value in it especially with my drawings. Equally I get really annoyed if it takes too long because I think, well, it's obviously not working then, is it?
Joining The Crowd, painting, 2024I think that's the danger whenever I make anything. Am I doing the same thing over again but trying to make it a little different? I think of FACE-OFF as a show rather than individual pieces, which is really interesting when you think that you sat with these works, and only these works, for months. Making them and then showing them.
Originally I'd said I’d do FACE-OFF because I was fed up, but I think saying it comes from anger gives it connotations that I'm pissed off at a person or event or something, but I don't think anger is the right word. I think it's maybe passion. A better word would be fire… I feel like I'm always the one that gets trampled on. I wonder if subconsciously, that's why I called it FACE-OFF, because I used to say I was developing an army. There’s twenty-thousand of me. I wanted FACE-OFF to be almost a mark in the sand, this is the culmination. This is it!
When artists fantasize about what they need to be an artist, it’s usually time dedicated to being in their own world soly making, followed up by having a big solo exhibition. You find yourself in that exact situation and moving away from other things. I wonder whether those other things are actually what you need to make work?
Is that a kind of warning? because the thought just keeps crossing my mind. I am guilty of saying an artist should be doing this and an artist should be doing that. I've constantly got impostor syndrome.
If it rings true as a warning for you, then I guess it is. I also have a habit of saying to myself, I just need to get to this point and then I'll be in a good place, or, I just need to get to this point and then I'll feel better about my practice.
Yeah, I know what you mean. I'm really worried that I'll finish this and be like, yeah, so you've done it now. Do you feel better? I felt a bit like I was losing myself. I don't know how to explain it. I'm always normally quite sociable and I've had to be really strict with myself, and be that less. I don't know.
I just feel like I'm a lot more me, I'm going towards the me I want to be. I'm getting lost in my own words. The way I feel is that I've lost a bit of myself but I don't know whether that was just like a bad bit. I'm just a lot more assured than I was about the path I'm on. So I don't need the outside world at the moment. I feel very raw. I don't normally show people partly finished paintings like this and I've never shown people my drawings really. I’ve decided to get over it.
How do you develop each of your works? Do you have a method when building a body of work different to a single painting?
When I design a painting, there's very little thought that goes into it because I'm trying to maintain an unconscious attitude towards it. a whole bunch of childhood memories could be swirling around in there. Instead of having a dream about an image I dreamt about a phrase, which is why they seemingly don't make sense. Sometimes it'll be repeating in my head. And I'll wake up and I'll just write them down. I have no idea why.
I'm always quite loose with backgrounds and I put a lot of effort into the detail of things, like the hands and the face. When I don't really have them I get a bit lost. That one [points to Debutante painting], I'm so annoyed with because in my head, that one was brilliant. I was like, wow, I'm gonna be this moth creature! How fantastic is that gonna look? I spent the most amount of time I have on any of these paintings, photoshopping this moth-y looking me, and there's just something... this is why I have to keep saying I just have to paint it because by the end I think it will come around.
I don't keep a sketchbook. I think it's a real big hang up of mine because the works come from dreams. It always makes me feel like it's a bit of a cop out that I don't have a reason for making my work, and it almost makes me feel a bit subordinate to someone who sits down and really thinks about the whys and the how's. I don't keep a sketchbook because I put things through Photoshop first. I wake up in the night after I've had a dream and do something like that [points to Dinner For One painting], which is me with a book for a head eating fried eggs.
Debutante, painting, 2024
Dinner For One, painting, 2024
Do you feel pressure to come up with something, when you’re relying on the unreliable?
Yeah, I do worry that they will dry up but it's not happened yet. I think because I eke out so much from what others might see as so little. There was one dream, it was literally a flash, like a second, I was lying down in a certain position and this whole painting came from it. It's hard to explain. I'll take a picture of me in that position, and then I'll be like, Ooh, you know, it'd be nice here. I'll put that there. And then, oh, I should put that there. And I'd like dandelions on it as well. That'd be cool. So there's a remarkably little prompt that I need. I don't know why I called that one In My Pocket. I was looking at poems about crows and poems about scarecrows so maybe there was a line in one.
A pocket full of posies, maybe?
Maybe. There were loads, I went through this whole list because I used to watch Mother Goose when I was young. We’d walk to the shop and buy sour bubblegum and then go home and watch Mother Goose and Mickey’s Christmas Carol every Saturday. The etymology of a lot of poems are warnings, warnings to children that rhythm so they'll remember them. It's so funny. A lot of these works brought up old childhood memories of things I used to love drawing all the time. I used to be obsessed with constantly drawing roses and flowers.
When I was a kid my parents had to get to work, so I’d just be dropped off at school and I would have to occupy myself. It was a creative thing, that I learned to just make up my own worlds. I used to pretend to run a library. I would wake up every morning in the summer holidays, lay out all my books on my bed and then just sit by it all day and every so often, my mother would feel sorry for me and come in and rent a book. Otherwise I’d just be sitting there. Or I was a carpet salesman. The carpet salesman was quite fun to prepare for because I went around my house and took rubbings of things and then put them all into a folder. So if someone would come in, I'd be like, do you want to look at my samples?
Judtopia feels more like a weather system; the landscape can shift, rather than bricks and mortar. Lots of artists create their own worlds, but it's quite male dominated; male artists are given that freedom, they can be self involved.
Yeah, I feel like it's more acceptable. I find it quite funny though, because this character I always portray is so not me. One of my favorite games is to give various friends of mine the job they would have in Judtopia and then I will talk about how, in Judtopia, you have to dress how I want you to dress. I'll have my own police force, and you have to abide by my rules. It's just funny because I would never be like that. It's just the game I'm addicted to. I remember researching fascism… did I ever tell you the origin of where Judtopia comes from? my fascist roots?
I liked the idea of one of these places coming about and documenting its rise and fall, which is why I was looking into fascism. I wanted to know how things like this are allowed to happen; what happens to create the space for one powerful dictator to be able to do this? I had this idea, of making a book that was a found document that would be filled with fake newspaper clips, articles and adverts that people who lived in the town would receive. It didn’t progress further than adverts advertising people come and live in Judtopia… ‘the life you will have here will be 10 times better if you just come and live here’. Then, as the book goes on, it'd be ‘welcome to your new police force’, you have to introduce a fear. They [the police] were going to impose a uniform and build a gold statue of me. Then, as it went on, it'd be ‘riots in Judtopia!’ Was it Saddam's statue that got toppled? I only got as far as advertising people to come and live in Judtopia.
When did you pivot? because that's not what I see in your work now, obviously these paintings aren’t taking place in a fascist state. Did you purposely say, actually, I don't want to do that?
I didn't want it to fail. I didn't want it to crumble. You go to Judtopia and bad things don't happen. Did you ever read why the guy made The Sims? Originally, his house burned down in a fire and he made The Sims because he wanted to make a place where even the bad things don't happen or if they do, you can rebuild it easily. It was a little special place. I just really liked that because I'm obsessed with The Sims.
So there's no sword fighting in Judtopia?
No! My god, no. No, because I only invite selected people to come and live there. You have to apply. My friend Caitlin lives there. She's the sheriff. I've given her a helicopter. Not that the sheriff would have to do that much but she's patrolling. I think it's just good for the people to see. Dan is the bar manager. He's not very happy about this because currently he is a bar manager, but if he wants to live there… and the bar sells wine because it's my world.
Are all Jude’s in the paintings one Jude, or are they different people? How do you see them, are you all Jude within the world of Judtopia?
That's difficult because sometimes I refer to them as not even me. I'll say ‘oh, look at her’ or ‘look at this one!’ as if it's not me. That one in particular (points at Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees painting), I really like how they are all having seemingly different experiences with this dance. That one at the back is really not into it. So in that respect, I feel like they are separate. They're all definitely me but just having very different experiences of situations.
The problem is, I don't mind people asking about them [the Jude figures], but they always say it like this. ‘Oh, do you always paint yourself?’ Yeah, I know what you’re saying, you passive aggressive dick. I know what you’re saying. That's when I don't like answering it. If someone says, ‘oh, wow! Why do you paint yourself?’ I'd be happy to talk about it, but you want to call me a narcissist? Is that what you want? You don't get into Judtopia now.
Beneath The Trees Where Nobody Sees, painting, 2024I would never want to constantly paint myself because you have to study yourself.
Which is a part of it I enjoy! It's hard to explain but it's more about the fact that I don't really get on with the way I look. So this constant act of painting… have you heard of body checking? People who are afflicted will constantly check themselves or take pictures of themselves and I sometimes wonder if it's me sort of just checking, checking what's going on. Also, I keep finding weird things, like my eye kept coming out weird. It turns out I've got a stigmatism. So the one that I kept painting funny was that one. I wondered if that was why that kept happening, and I've got a scar just under one of my eyebrows that I didn't know I had. I asked my mom where it's from. She didn't know. I don't know, maybe you fell.
Are the images that come from dreams always you, as a figure? Are you inserting yourself into the image?
I think sometimes I do. I don't think it's always me in it. Sometimes it's just an idea and I'll just act it out. Like a script. I've got the script, I'm trying to bring that idea out. There's one painting where I'm painting into a river [Reflex] and I'm painting my own reflection. I fell asleep for a couple of minutes on a car journey then woke up and I had dreamt that image. Then there's other times where someone gave me that [points at a music box] and I thought it would be cool to have a painting of two people holding it. Then I'm like well, who else is gonna pose for this? Me. So a lot of it is convenience.
Reflex, painting, 2024
What do you think your trajectory is?
I'd like to just keep on this. I'd really like to keep trying this theme, but I get so bored so easily. I don't feel like I have control, especially seeing as they're from dreams or just quick thoughts. I don't really have control over where my subject matter goes. With regards to me, I think I want to just keep being part of more and more things, I'd like to be part of more established places and I'd like to find my place a bit more.
You could do anything you want! The next thing might be that you burn Judtopia down.
Yeah, I like that It's quite a vague umbrella to stand under without it being too themed. It's definitely getting there. I've been way more excited about a lot of these paintings than any others I've done. I thought that when I did this [points to One is Silver and the Other Gold painting], I only want to display this now! This is me! And now I'm already thinking that is old. We're moving on. The nostalgia they bring… I'm quite a dweller.
One is Silver and the Other Gold, painting, 2024-
Jude Wainwright’s FACE-OFF solo exhibition at Saan1, Manchester ran from the 3rd - 11th of May 2024. Jude wainwright is an associate member of the Manchester Academy of Fine Artists and currently based in AWOL Studios, aka ‘The Judio’.
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︎ @judewainwright_
judewainwright.com
︎ @jamesmccoll999
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If you like this why not read our interview with Theo Ellison.
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