Artist's Statement
I start with the volume and history of a space and then try to complement the atmosphere with appropriate objects – sculptures which engage in a dialogue with each other, the site, and the observer. The installation art that results is interactive with the visitor animating the scene through the discovery of hidden elements.
I began my career as an installation artist when my husband and I bought an old watermill in France, which we restored to grind flour and press walnut oil, but also to host visiting artists and professors of art and design with whom we worked and exhibited for over 17 years. The site is a sampling of some of my installations and projects, old and new, ones I can't forget, in France and the United States.
Judy O’Shea makes magic. She's a magician that takes a space and enlarges its dimensions, textures and history with elegant and poetic sculptural elements. She's able to transform the vision of those who see the spaces she’s treated with objects she has created which are often suspended from wires and carefully lit from within or without. Whether it's hanging giant paper eggs in the arches of a 15th-century barn or marshaling balls of twine as stand-in's for Roquefort sheep, a viewer is unavoidably left awestruck with surprise and pleasure. Her magic is not trickery. It's real conjuring and she is a master.
— Charles Hobson, Professor Emeritus,
San Francisco Art Institute