Judith Dean
Selected works
Judith Dean’s paintings question ways in which we look at images and art. Using her non-writing hand to reflect on control exerted by the conscious mind, Dean makes paintings that explore perspective and the singularity of the mind’s eye. Ideas of illusion - abstract, figurative, stylised and not - both inhabit and faux-frame the compositions as receding stages or galleries. Using the contingency of memory, found images from the Internet, personal photos, a 17th Century Chinese painting manual and through the practice of Hua Gong, Dean creates pictorial environments that reveal possibilities for exchange.
We see walls, floors, ceilings; separated rooms emerge from blind alleys, dead ends and shifting horizons. The digital world is a multiverse of images in which our attention is manipulated to focus on what is narrow and commercially and politically expedient. By painting numerous images within one painting, Dean plays with our focus and purpose in looking, making us aware of both the mind’s natural control and society’s. The images relate to diverse cultural, environmental, historical and unknown sources and the painting process assembles these into different worlds of staged inevitability.
Biography
Judith Dean (b.1965, Billericay, UK) lives and works in London and graduated from Wimbledon School of Art, London (1988) and Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam (1993). Recent solo exhibitions include New Builds / Bilds 2: did you mean peace? (South Parade, UK, 2025), One Thing and the Others, Bodenrader (Chicago, USA, 2024), New Builds / Bilds (The Image in Perspective), South Parade (London, UK, 2023) and June Art Fair, South Parade (Basel, CH, 2023). Recent two person exhibitions include Room Constant, Kurtkubin (Mexico City, MX, 2025), Of Strangers, Shahin Zarinbal (Berlin, DE, 2024) and Stolen Hours, 12.26 (Dallas, USA, 2024). Recent group exhibitions include Art Cologne with Shahin Zarinbal (Cologne, DE, 2025), A separate place between the thought and felt, South Parade (London, UK, 2024), the no plan plan, JVDW Gallery (Düsseldorf, DE, 2024), Inaugural Group Exhibition, Bodenrader (Chicago, USA, 2023), The World Was All Before Them, TULCA (Galway, IE, 2022), A gathering, Project 78 Gallery (St. Leonards-on-Sea, UK, 2022) & The Void, White Columns Online (New York, USA, 2021). Dean was the winner of the Jerwood Sculpture Prize (2005) and a Senior Lecturer in Fine Arts at UWE, Bristol (2008-24).
Exhibitions at Shahin Zarinbal
Of Strangers, 2024
Judith Dean
Selected works
Unresolved, 2023-24. Acrylic, silverpoint and coloured pencil on polyester, 72 × 102 cm
Nothing Left, 2022. Acrylic on hardboard, 41 × 55 cm
Installation view, Of Strangers, Shahin Zarinbal, Berlin, 2024
Installation view, Of Strangers, Shahin Zarinbal, Berlin, 2024
Installation view, Of Strangers, Shahin Zarinbal, Berlin, 2024
In Perspective, 2024. Acrylic on polyester, 51 × 101.5 cm
Catch, 2025–2026. Watercolour and acrylic on linen, 51 × 51 cm
End / for want of a better future, 2025. Watercolour on linen, 40.5 × 81 cm
Forest Hypnosis, 2024–25. Watercolour on linen, 79 × 82.5 cm
Crowd Control, 2022-23. Acrylic on found polyester, 76 × 116.5 cm
Installation view, New Builds / Bilds 2: did you mean peace?, South Parade, London, 2025
This is not a competition, 2023. Acrylic, oil and pencil on Belgian linen, 61 × 111.5 cm
Judith Dean’s paintings question ways in which we look at images and art. Using her non-writing hand to reflect on control exerted by the conscious mind, Dean makes paintings that explore perspective and the singularity of the mind’s eye. Ideas of illusion - abstract, figurative, stylised and not - both inhabit and faux-frame the compositions as receding stages or galleries. Using the contingency of memory, found images from the Internet, personal photos, a 17th Century Chinese painting manual and through the practice of Hua Gong, Dean creates pictorial environments that reveal possibilities for exchange.
We see walls, floors, ceilings; separated rooms emerge from blind alleys, dead ends and shifting horizons. The digital world is a multiverse of images in which our attention is manipulated to focus on what is narrow and commercially and politically expedient. By painting numerous images within one painting, Dean plays with our focus and purpose in looking, making us aware of both the mind’s natural control and society’s. The images relate to diverse cultural, environmental, historical and unknown sources and the painting process assembles these into different worlds of staged inevitability.
Biography
Judith Dean (b.1965, Billericay, UK) lives and works in London and graduated from Wimbledon School of Art, London (1988) and Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam (1993). Recent solo exhibitions include New Builds / Bilds 2: did you mean peace? (South Parade, UK, 2025), One Thing and the Others, Bodenrader (Chicago, USA, 2024), New Builds / Bilds (The Image in Perspective), South Parade (London, UK, 2023) and June Art Fair, South Parade (Basel, CH, 2023). Recent two person exhibitions include Room Constant, Kurtkubin (Mexico City, MX, 2025), Of Strangers, Shahin Zarinbal (Berlin, DE, 2024) and Stolen Hours, 12.26 (Dallas, USA, 2024). Recent group exhibitions include Art Cologne with Shahin Zarinbal (Cologne, DE, 2025), A separate place between the thought and felt, South Parade (London, UK, 2024), the no plan plan, JVDW Gallery (Düsseldorf, DE, 2024), Inaugural Group Exhibition, Bodenrader (Chicago, USA, 2023), The World Was All Before Them, TULCA (Galway, IE, 2022), A gathering, Project 78 Gallery (St. Leonards-on-Sea, UK, 2022) & The Void, White Columns Online (New York, USA, 2021). Dean was the winner of the Jerwood Sculpture Prize (2005) and a Senior Lecturer in Fine Arts at UWE, Bristol (2008-24).
Exhibitions at Shahin Zarinbal
Of Strangers, 2024