Judith Cain
Judith Cain was born in York in 1944. Having studied painting at Leeds College of Art, from 1960 to 1964, she went on to do a further year at Goldsmiths College, London University in 1965. Following this she became a part-time lecturer at numerous colleges including Canterbury College of Art, Colchester Technical College, and Leeds Polytechnic. In 1985, Judy accepted the post of Painting Co-ordinator in the Fine Art Department at Leeds Metropolitan University, where she has worked both full and part-time, until her recent retirement in 2006.
The landscape and plants have been key to Judy's work and the relationship between them is her inspiration. She has travelled widely distilling her experiences, whether it be a group of yew trees surrounding an Irish Farm house, or more recently, Epiphytes hanging off lush Ecuadorian rain forest vegetation.
Judy was asked to visit Ecuador in 2007 as a part of a research trip exploring wild orchids and exotic plants in situ. Whilst there, Judy explored the mountain area of the Andes where she discovered a wide variety of cushion plants growing on the snowline at 12,000ft. In contrast to this, Judy also travelled to the rainforest and the Amazonian jungle where she was interested in a much wider range of flowering plants, trees, birds and insects.
Judy has exhibited worldwide, and in 2004, was invited by the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, London, to exhibit paintings that explored the flora of Kazakhstan. She has recently been commissioned to design a floor for the radiotherapy reception area of the new Leeds Hospital, and also a corridor of paintings to accompany it. The work has now been installed and is an integral part of the feeling of healing and rehabilitation to the radiotherapy wing of the hospital. Judy has won many awards and her work can be seen in several public collections.
Judy Cain has been exhibiting with Thackeray Gallery since 1991.
