Noël Hudson Bio/Statement

My paintings and works on paper reflect an amalgam of influences beginning

with my birth in San Francisco and early years spent growing up in southern

California. Art and design were my passion and I was fortunate to be mentored

by an extraordinary high school art teacher who motivated me to become an

artist and art educator. Later, the substantial arts and humanities curriculum at

Scripps College, Claremont CA enriched and broadened my artistic focus and it

was there that I met and studied with two artist/professors, master ceramist

Paul Soldner and nationally known painter Roger Kuntz, who were to further

encourage my development as an artist. During these formative years the

fashion world provided summer employment and later, after graduation, led to

positions as a fashion coordinator for several large southern California

department stores.

National and international travel and experiencing foreign cultures play an

Important part in my artistic career. While working on my Master’s degree in art

at Claremont Graduate University I studied art history while traveling extensively

in Europe. A year later I left the United States for Asia where I spent three years

teaching art, studying with a Japanese print maker, exploring Japan and visiting

numerous Southeast Asian countries. In 1980, attracted by the cultural diversity

and dramatic landscape of New Mexico, I moved from southern California to

Taos to focus on painting. Since then I have continued to live and maintain my

studio near the Rio Grande River in Taos, Albuquerque and currently Santa Fe

for the past thirty-two years while concurrently continuing my travels nationally

and internationally.

Creatively, I have enjoyed artistic diversity and experimentation in a variety of media

and styles over the years and my work has been widely collected in the United States,

Canada and the Caribbean. While living and teaching in California I was known

for my powerful and distinct contemporary artworks in clay and fiber. In New Mexico,

I have focused on painting, printmaking and collage in compositions which reflect

my interest in and love for both abstraction and representation. Here, the beauty

and variety of the natural world in its many forms has been a rich source of

inspiration for my inner life and my work. Intuition and an emotional response

guide my approach to each subject which then allow me to combine similar

compositional elements such as bold design, expressive use of color, patterned

surface and distinctive mark making with a spirit of movement.