"I am attracted to things that don’t have a high beauty value in themselves because it is more of an opportunity to find the beauty of the light or of their various relative configurations. Those sorts of things give me work to do rather than painting something that is already beautiful."
Jude Rae, 2020
Jude Rae’s (b. 1956, l. Sydney) observational painting practice is analytic of objects, space and light. Her work is as much concerned with the generative energy around things and the relationships adhering between them as the things themselves. Rae works within the genres of still life and large-scale interiors and the conceptual and perceptual propositions they offer as within a laboratory, subtly manipulating the variables of composition and the desires of media - oil paint on textured linen, charcoal, watercolour and etchings on paper – for palpable effects. She chooses objects emptied of sentimentality and familiarity and places them under “inquisitorial” (Rae) light. Economies of composition are narrowed to formal elements, sensitising and slowing the activity of looking via nuanced constructions and interpretations of light and affecting tonal relationships. These things operate somewhat differently in the large still lifes where there is often a more luxurious articulation of objects and an expansion of spatial relationships compared with the more brutal expression (abstract reduction) and spatial compression in the smaller ones. Colour comes with emotional impact via selection of objects and backgrounds conveyed in pigment.
Parallel to her painting practice that has focused primarily on still lifes and large scale interiors, Rae has produced a significant body of portraiture including official portraits for parliamentary, university and corporate collections in Australia and New Zealand.
Key exhibitions
- The Intelligence of Painting, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, curated by Suzanne Cotter and Manya Sellers, Sydney 2025
- Know My Name, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, 2021
- Jude Rae: A Space of Measured Light, Drill Hall Gallery, curated by Terence Maloon, Canberra, 2017
- Bulgari Art Award, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2016
Key readings
- Terence Maloon, Jude Rae: A Space of Measured Light, exh. cat. Drill Hall Gallery, Canberra
Collections
ACT Legislative Assembly Art Collection, Canberra
Aigantighe Gallery
Timaru; Artbank
Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide
Australian and New Zealand College of Anaesthetists
Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, Auckland
Australia Club, Sydney
Australian, National University Collection, Canberra
BHP Collection
Canberra Museum and Gallery, Canberra
Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, Christchurch
Coopers and Lybrand, Auckland
Dunedin Public Art Gallery, Dunedin
Fletcher Trust Collection, Auckland
High Court of Australia, Canberra
James Wallace Arts Trust, Auckland
Jennifer B. Gibbs Trust, Auckland
Lion Nathan, Sydney; Monash
University Museum of Art, Melbourne
Museum of New Zealand/Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington
National Bank of New Zealand
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
National Portrait Gallery, Canberra
Newcastle Art Gallery
Northern Club, Auckland
Parliament House Art Collection, Canberra
Royal Australasian College of Surgeons, Melbourne
University of Auckland Art Collection, Auckland
University of Canterbury Art Collection, Christchurch
University of Melbourne Art Collection, Melbourne
University of Technology Art Collection, Sydney.