Jo Budd paints, but on fabric rather than paper or canvas. An artist of international repute, her Beyond Surface exhibition is on show at Farfield Mill Arts and Heritage Centre until June 6, a satellite event linked to the Women's Arts International Festival, which is running at Kendal's Brewery Arts Centre.
Jo's work in her Farfield show dates from two periods: 1997 to 2001, which includes the Elemental Landscape Series and the Green Series, which were made when she moved to rural Suffolk, (after her Lowestoft period), and 2005 to 2007, which features the new Rust Series, created since moving to Bungay (still in Suffolk) and building a new studio.
The two groups of works are linked by their common themes of landscape, surface and visual depth.
Corrugated Iron, made in 1998, is the earliest piece in the show and the most pictorial.
Although not directly linked to landscape, the marks imitate those of nature, watery and flowing, and the colours are those of earth and sky.
"Its theme is definitely looking beyond the surface," explains Jo.
Jo tells me that the Elemental Landscape Series was a response to the flat agricultural north Suffolk landscape, reduced to horizontal bands of colour - Rothkoesque' and minimal in composition - exploring horizon lines and colour relationships to create depth.
As the series progressed, the colour pallet changed from sunset oranges and muddy earth colours to the searing fresh greens of fields of fresh crops.
Fields of Green is the last in the series, the emphasis being on the intensity of the green and the stitching, which creates a surface furrowed with rows of shadows.
The newer work is also a response to landscape - the Upper Waveney Valley and water meadows which flood intermittently, and which Jo explains she has the pleasure of looking over from her studio, built in 2005.
Farfield is open 10.30am-5pm seven days a week.
For further information telephone 015396-21958.
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