Judith Mary or J. M. Churchill as she signed herself, did not exhibit during her lifetime. Known as Judy to all that knew her, she was married and had three children, Ann is her eldest child. She and her family lived in a rented flat above a newsagent off Kensington High Street, London, from the 1930s until her death in 1998. Judy’s practice was one of exploration and healing. She most often produced work when she was experiencing a mental health challenge. As well as bringing up her family, she worked as a delivery driver for Osram and was the first woman to receive beer money as a unionised driver. During the Second World War she drove ambulances, and later in life she worked as a preschool nursery assistant.

In her early 50s she was hospitalised on more than one occasion with severe mental health breakdowns and was treated with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), at the time her husband, the artist George Churchill, encouraged her and others in the hospital alongside her, to draw. The works you on this site were made at that time, between 1968-1974.

Working initially on sheets of newspaper or tracing paper with biro or coloured pencils, over time the works became more graphic and abstract. Earlier drawings appear like surreal architectural proposals with small details such as cell like rooms, railings or lampposts merging into rock like architectures. At once organic and supernatural these sculptural forms occasionally exhibit gravity defying tendrils streaming in an unknown force.  Across the later drawings, scale and context are eliminated and distinct object like forms are grouped in clusters, as if on a tabletop or within an expansive open landscape.

Working from life some of these otherworldly objects are depictions of scavenged natural forms: pieces of wood, or stones appear as both subject and inspiration for the eerie spaces pictured, others are entirely imagined. Through these images Judy visualises and share her personal inner landscape.

NB: the edges of the paper were secured with neat lines of Sellotape to wooden drawing boards, these have been left intact and are visible