Judy Haberl: Black & Blue

Trinity Elegy, 2022, 86x36”, Hanging sculpture, mixed media.

“There’s something about black. You feel hidden away in it.”
~ Georgia O’Keefe

“There are connoisseurs of blue, just as there are connoisseurs of wine.”
~
Sidonie Gabrielle Colette

“You know that great pause that comes upon things before the dusk, even the breeze stops in the trees. To me there is always an air of expectation about that evening stillness.”
~
H.G. Wells, The Time Machine

Blue is the closest color to truth”
~ Steven Tyler (Aerosmith) 

I have been smitten with the color black for decades, with its inky depths and visual punch, and now blue, especially shades of cyan are new fascinations. I acknowledge the deep roots in history, music, literature and art of the meanings and importance of color. I am adding my own interpretations here.

My exhibition, Black & Blue is a love song and a lament, a suite of ideas - rendered through intaglio prints, photographs, and sculptures (Dusk, Floating World & Reveries) that are embedded with layers of black flowers, blue atmosphere and intertwining black branches. The images for me, attempt to convey moments - from the translucent allure of dusk to the mysteries of human nature. 

Hinting at man’s hand in creating global events in the name of progress and peace, Trinity Elegy (hanging fabric sculpture) takes the form of the first nuclear test (July 16th, 1945, in Socorro, New Mexico) as part of the Manhattan project. Formed of “innocent” materials, Trinity Elegy hovers like a mad chandelier, having created a momentary and blinding light and decades of aftermath.

 

Floating World, 2022, 49 intaglio prints mounted on aluminum discs with branches and silk flowers.

Dusk Laments 1-18 (Left to Right), 2022, 24x15” each, Intaglio mono-prints.