Noël Hudson Bio/Statement
My paintings and works on paper reflect an amalgam of influences beginning
with my birth in San Francisco and early years spent growing up in southern
California. Art and design were my passion and I was fortunate to be mentored
by an extraordinary high school art teacher who motivated me to become an
artist and art educator. Later, the substantial arts and humanities curriculum at
Scripps College, Claremont CA enriched and broadened my artistic focus and it
was there that I met and studied with two artist/professors, master ceramist
Paul Soldner and nationally known painter Roger Kuntz, who were to further
encourage my development as an artist. During these formative years the
fashion world provided summer employment and later, after graduation, led to
positions as a fashion coordinator for several large southern California
department stores.
National and international travel and experiencing foreign cultures play an
Important part in my artistic career. While working on my Master’s degree in art
at Claremont Graduate University I studied art history while traveling extensively
in Europe. A year later I left the United States for Asia where I spent three years
teaching art, studying with a Japanese print maker, exploring Japan and visiting
numerous Southeast Asian countries. In 1980, attracted by the cultural diversity
and dramatic landscape of New Mexico, I moved from southern California to
Taos to focus on painting. Since then I have continued to live and maintain my
studio near the Rio Grande River in Taos, Albuquerque and currently Santa Fe
for the past thirty-two years while concurrently continuing my travels nationally
and internationally.
Creatively, I have enjoyed artistic diversity and experimentation in a variety of media
and styles over the years and my work has been widely collected in the United States,
Canada and the Caribbean. While living and teaching in California I was known
for my powerful and distinct contemporary artworks in clay and fiber. In New Mexico,
I have focused on painting, printmaking and collage in compositions which reflect
my interest in and love for both abstraction and representation. Here, the beauty
and variety of the natural world in its many forms has been a rich source of
inspiration for my inner life and my work. Intuition and an emotional response
guide my approach to each subject which then allow me to combine similar
compositional elements such as bold design, expressive use of color, patterned
surface and distinctive mark making with a spirit of movement.
