THE EMERALD CURTAIN is a compilation of works that is essentially a conversation between all versions of myself along time. Beginning with pieces such as The House is Bigger Than the Street, which followed an image from my mind’s eye in the bathtub as I made one of the most challenging decisions of my life, to the The Emerald Curtain, Pt. 1 which came about following personal art experiments inspired by psychological literature on the unconscious mind, the series is nothing sort but an autobiographical account of the beginnings of self-discovery, and understanding. Through the pieces in these series, I began to play with my artistic practices and approaches, in order to garner an understanding of what it is I truly wish to create. The series finishes off with Autoscopy, a piece inspired by the hallucinatory phenomena of seeing an external double of oneself. THE EMERALD CURTAIN, is an explosion of a previously poorly restrained energetic “self.”
18×24. Oil on canvas. 2021.
I open my mouth to swallow myself whole
limbs brushing up against bleached gums
as I descend down.
I stayed up too late again tonight
my joints are aching and I am counting
breaths in my diaphragm.
So I tilt forward on my axis, meet the Earth
somewhere in the middle as it shifts—
even death dances through motion.
(deep breaths in,
deep breaths out)
Anytime I am near the ocean
I cement myself deep into the sand.
Otherwise my blood may turn to tides
as my skin shrivels up to scale,
saltwater filling my lungs.
12×18, oil pastel on paper. 2022
The joints in my wrist, knees, elbows
and more are eroded, frail—
x-rays always bits and chips and
bits of bones.
My composition is all but solid.
Looking out towards the sea,
I reminisce on a time where I did not
have to attempt to take shape.
Every form I feel is unnatural, tight;
restrictive—
maybe hunger acts as a means
of becoming because when hungry
I am holding something back but when
my stomach is full, I am ravenous.
I build a dam around whatever it is
I am not supposed to speak of;
My bones crack again,
the wood shakes and snaps;
whether the waters are polluted or pristine,
I always seep out.
12×18. Oil pastel on paper. 2023
The first, second, first, third time
the world fell apart, it all fragmented.
I achieved an exorcism of sorts through the rubble.
Now it all sort of fuses as it falls &
I have been attempting to assign psychic attributes
to the relentless act
of dying and dying and living and dying,
so I fertilize myself, birthday party & bones.
I am born tomorrow night & last morning I forgot
my own name, so I tune into a new channel
& remember when need feels like a disease and
desire feels like lying, so I step out of my skin
and into a plane a little more
accessible. My cat knows more than I
so I gaze into the water, listening to frog croaks
in the back of my head, my hair is wet as
water cascades down upon rocks
in a rainforest unseen yet remembered.
Blinking back I admire a lake as a flame,
flickering back I return to my bathtub.
Candle lit in front of me, bloody hands placed
atop the fire. I light myself up,
and exhale the smoke.
2×18. Oil on pastel, 2024
The door is wide open,
I am singing with my chin
tucked into my back.
the bone between my
shoulder blades sticks out,
it pokes and prods the air
around it, and the trees
behind me are speaking
everything has something to say
I am walking backwards,
doing cartwheels sideways,
my nose tucked into
the underbelly of my hind legs,
my palms pressed out against
the furthest point of perception,
a flame burns bright from my fingerprint.
I carry these fires forward,
my footsteps ticking
to tune of a tiger
I carry these fires forward
towards
cherry blossom trees
with sugar on my skin,
and caramelized
metabolic pathways,
resistant to flammable
matter, always quite
brash in it’s burning.
the longer I draw out the sparks
that emanant out, the further
I am from walking out
and towards gateway on the other side
and the passageway that follows
I draw a map of the outline
of all I was and I will be,
I draw a map of the sun as
I roll into a bridge over it’s
crown,
I am bending, twisting
and turning, resurrected
again—
I press my palm to the center
of my chest and let the fires free.
Why are you still waiting?
When the clock obliterates all
that intersects—beauty and bliss,
the lion unfolding; I will
return to the
sanctity of the Sun.
belle judy 