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Four-and-a-half years ago, Judith Davidson hadn’t painted a picture since she completed her Art G.C.E. in high school, but you wouldn’t think it to look at her first solo show hanging on the walls of the Masterworks Rose Garden Gallery.

The small gallery seems much larger when viewed through Davidson’s paintings, scenes of Bermuda’s beaches, harbours and coves are everywhere. Davidson says she paints Bermuda simply because she loves Bermuda.

“I am Bermudian, my family goes back to the 1700s,” she said. “Bermuda is my home and my home is Bermuda. I have been appreciating the beaches and the colours of Bermuda all my life and there isn’t a day that goes by that I’m not amazed by the green of a leaf or the pink of a beach or the pink in a blue sky.”

Davidson’s appreciation goes further than most though, and a closer look at many of her paintings reveal that even her blackest hues have colours mixed into them. Instead of using black oil paint from a tube, Davidson mixes her own, using two or more of the colours on her palate.

She explains: “I love the way that colour happens on a palate… [My black] appears to be black, but it’s a mixed black. A mixed black is a lot less harsh than a black that comes out of a tube.

“I mix my black according to what effect I want it to have on canvas.”

Davidson says she has always had a desire to paint, but following the completion of her Art G.C.E. in high school she never did. Instead, she created through flower arranging, a hobby that took her as far afield as Japan to instruct classes.

Then, once she retired from her job at Edgewood Pediatric Services, her children gave her a set of paints for Christmas. She began working in acrylic, and then moved to oil paints soon after. Her first-ever oil painting, a pink-hued beach scene, is on display in this show. Since that first painting, Davidson entered her work in several exhibitions, and took classes under the instruction of Dan Dempster, Vernon Clarke and Julia Coash, among others.

“My artistic talent appeared in flower arranging so that I became an international judge and teacher and demonstrator and exhibitor,” she said. “When you think about it from an artistic point of view, I changed from flower arranging to Fine Arts and all I did was change my medium from plant material to paint on a canvas.

“I prefer to work plein air because you’re right out in the light of the moment. You get the whole feel of the surroundings.

“If I can’t stand there and paint, then I take photographs and then I take them home and I print them out and I only use them as a reference. I can still get the feeling and the colour, but I can put in my own interpretation and just paint.” n

Davidson’s show is open until October 19 in the Rose Garden Gallery at Masterworks in the Botanical Gardens. She will be in the gallery during the opening hours.[[In-content Ad]]

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