WCSL 126

'These are the most elusive of matters: perception, consciousness, the nature of being, how to sustain an awareness of what it is to be present to oneself.' (Jude Rae, quoted in Jude Rae Sydney/Auckland: Jawpress, 2011 n.p)

Jude Rae's finely wrought and sophisticated compositions owe much to the longstanding tradition of still life in western art, particularly Morandi. They are deliberately non-rhetorical and allude to the metaphysical and allegorical conventions of the genre in a very subtle way. Volume, stillness and a sense of falling light are achieved through the very deliberate construction of her compositions and distinctive light-infused palette. The juxtaposition of recognisable objects such as bottles or vases, and more elusive forms into the picture plane (for example the ambiguous black rectangle in 'WCSL 110') are a recurring feature of many of her works, in which negative space disrupts the composition and brings a sense of ambiguity to the image that arrests they eye and engages the viewer more deeply.

Rae has used distinctive qualities of the watercolour medium, such as bleeding the pigment to great effect, heightening the ambiguity of her forms and infusing them with a sense of mystery and poetry.