Judy Darragh is a prolific New Zealand artist renowned for her brightly coloured sculptural assemblages of found objects, recycled items, industrial materials, collage, photography, video, and poster art. Emerging as an artist during the 80s era of conspicuous consumption, Darragh’s work displayed a fondness for everyday objects and played with our views of material consumerism. ‘Kitsch’ and a strong association with localised nostalgia is at the essence of Darragh’s work. Her assemblages appear as structurally makeshift piles of ‘materials’, incorporating elements ranging from bottles, glassware and plastic to corks, feathers, tikis, beads, paint, flowers, paua and cake tins. It is this mass of media that form the basis of her two dimensional and three dimensional installations.
Read MoreCollecting is an integral part of Darragh’s work as she investigates the relationship between objects and their surroundings. It is, however, the process of making these large assemblages that is as important as the observation itself. She makes new from the old and provides objects with a fresh significance or value. Darragh alters form and function of her found objects and they are transformed in meaning with each shift in context; most often taken out of their traditional domestic interior and placed within the realm of an artistic space or shop window. It is this process of reinvention that is significant, our engagement with the objects and the value we place on them.
Darragh is exhibits widely in New Zealand and her work is held in various major collections including Auckland City Art Gallery and Govett Brewster in New Plymouth. In 2004 the Museum of New Zealand - Te Papa Tongarewa featured a major retrospective of her work curated by Natasha Conland and entitled, Judy Darragh: So … you made it?
Well known in artistic circles, Darragh is also involved with www.cuckoo.co.nz, an artistic initiative that organises shows in various galleries or spaces. A writer, speaker and teacher, the artist lives in Auckland.
