Island Life Magazine Ltd October/November 2008 | Page 22

life

INTERVIEW

The truth
on canvas

Judith Barton is
acclaimed for her art far
beyond the confines of
the Island. She talks to
Rosalind Whistance

Photo: Judith pictured in her Ryde studio in 2008
with some of her current work (African Lions) which
is for an exhibition of widlife paintings in London
for Spring 2009.

We all know those old ladies. The disdainful
glance, the set jaw, the folds of neck – they
are aunts we had or grannies, or the old
bat next door. Their familiarity is such that it
almost undermines the skill of the artist who
captured it, exaggerated it a little and hung

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it on the wall.
Siblings in Black Hats is one of two works
which have won plaudits for artist Judith
Barton in the recent Threadneedle Figurative
Prize exhibition in the prestigious Mall
Galleries in London. In an art world which

has been dominated by conceptual art
for the past 20-odd years, it is the aim of
the Federation of British Artists who stage
the exhibition to turn back to the cutting
edge of figurative art. Judith’s razor-sharp
depiction of character and story, in this

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