Delpha Hudson is an artist based way out West in Penwith, Cornwall
Her colourful historical-contemporary paintings reconfigure representations of women and their stories to promote care for others and the world around us.
Artist’s Statement
Art making is a means of reconnecting the alternative values of past cultures to the present, and addressing issues of resistance, sustainability, and economies of care.
I use painting as a way of thinking through complex systems with multiple and entangled narratives. My tapestry-like ‘history’ paintings use a vernacular of interpretable figures, colours, symbols and patterns to tell stories about women’s lives. Assimilating mythologies from the past and realising them in a language of the present explores empathy and what we value now.
Idealised and fluid female archetypes satirise hierarchies in which women have so often been absent. They are surrounded by surreal landscapes and domestic patterns that heave with carnivalesque hybrid figures, patterns and symbols that create new fictions and polyphonic stories that create relatable and transformative experience.
Painting installations combine painting with found objects, including local granite egg stones and domestic furniture. Performance and film works use reflexive processes of embodiment in local landscapes as a vehicle to empower and connect. Visual storytelling creates equality, visibility and value for women’s bodily experiences of mothering and caring for the natural world.
Delpha Hudson, March 2024
Grandma’s Story is a rescued a chair that was made into an interactive project story project for Tremenheere Sculpture Gardens & Gallery in 2024 that invited everyone to sit in the chair and read stories. Many original stories were submitted – all re-versioned traditional tales, myths and stories about women.
A common treasury for all, acrylic on canvas, 200x180cm, 2023
Other projects include performance, film and installation
Feral Mothers, performance collaborations and film with Helen Sargeant.
Paintings in oil and bitumen paint
Paintings using watercolour and ink on paper
Watch a film of Delpha talking about her work
For all the latest news connect to Delpha on instagram @delphahudson