b. 1955, Pittsburgh, PA

Judith Kruger, born 1955, is an American visual artist whose paintings, prints and mixed media works address Human-Environment connectivity and their shared vulnerabilities. She is recognized internationally for her advocacy of natural painting materials and historic, ecological processes.

Judith’s solo exhibitions include Drawing Ground, MLT Gallery-Wisdom House, Litchfield, CT, Mingled Terrain, Richardson Art Museum, Wofford College, Spartanburg, SC (2018), An Alchemic View, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Connecticut (2015), Touching Rain, Hammond Museum, North Salem, NY (2015) Outside In, Bentley Gallery, Phoenix, Arizona (2014) and New Paintings at Morrison Gallery, Kent, Connecticut (2013). Group exhibitions include Agawami Museum Hall, Tokushima, Japan, Sato Museum, Tokyo, Japan, Mass MoCA, North Adams, MA, New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT, John and Robyn Horn Gallery, Penland, NC, Perimeter Gallery, Chicago, IL, Woman Made Gallery, Chicago, IL, Manifest Gallery, Cincinnati, OH, Gallery G, Hiroshima, Japan, Pallazo Dell’Annunziata, Matera, Italy, Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago, IL and The Muckenthaler Cultural Center, Fullerton, CA.

Judith’s work is held in private, public and corporate collections: some of which include Hammond Museum, North Salem, NY, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, CT, Jefferson Hospital, Philadelphia, PA, Savannah College of Art and Design, Hong Kong and Phipps Conservatory’s Center for Sustainable Landscapes, Pittsburgh, PA.

In 2008, Judith initiated the course Nihonga: Then and Now at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and was awarded a grant from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs to teach her course Getting the Dirt on Paint in the Chicago Public School System. Her painting workshops and studio residencies, based on these courses, are currently garnering an international following. In 2011, Judith was awarded a Target Professional Development grant. She is a recipient of a Mass MoCA Assets for Artists matching grant (2016) and most recently, a Connecticut Office of the Arts Fellowship grant (2019).

Additionally, between 1977 and 2007, Judith collaborated with artisans in over a dozen countries on applied art and design manufacturing projects. During this time, she travelled extensively throughout Japan, India and Thailand researching the historic, scientific and artistic applications of inorganic and organic pigments. She has served as a member of the Dean’s Advisory Board of Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts, the Syracuse University Chicago Arts Council Board and Chicago’s Ravenswood ArtWalk Board. Her fundraising efforts, which mobilized the creativity of hundreds of artists and designers in the Chicago area, resulted in the donation of significant funds to UCLA AIDS Institute to further AIDs research.

Judith currently resides in Northwest, CT. Her studio is located in an old hosiery mill, 125 miles north of New York City, at the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains.

Although my work broadly addresses human-environment connectivity, it is best experienced formally as its own visual language. I continually record and investigate transient light, weathered surfaces, impermanent shadows and depth of space and place. Pulverized organic and inorganic minerals and plants, natural binders, oxidized meal, plant fibered paper, wood and linen each embody an inherent, visceral beauty. When intentionally layered, alchemically altered and juxtaposed, their context shifts from an obvious familiar to a lesser-defined, ambiguous state. This indiscernible, yet deeply rooted, abstraction collectively signifies the preciousness, fragility and transience of all phenomena.

Visual Art Source –  Bentley Gallery
Nihonga refers to a traditional method of Japanese painting through the use of mineral pigments. This process has guided Judith Kruger’s work for more than a decade. Bentley Gallery proudly unveils Outside In, the artist’s first solo exhibition in Phoenix. 

The Art Founders Project – Artist Interview
American abstract painter Judith Kruger emphasizes a human-environment connection in her work. In an interview with Sherry Saunders, Kruger recounts her introduction to the process of Nihonga, a traditional Japanese style of mineral painting she was introduced to while in Kyoto. Kruger also discusses her re-contextualization of this process in the contemporary art world.