Judit Kristensen on the pace and vulnerability of her pencil portraits

Date
20 March 2018

“I like when there is vulnerable pieces in a drawing. I prefer pathetic over perfect," says artist Judit Kristensen, from Umeå in the north of Sweden but currently based in Copenhagen. Much of Judit’s portfolio is made up of meditative sketches of friends or wistful self-portraits. “I think a lot of time I use drawing myself to turn something self-centred into something even more so,” says Judit self-deprecatingly. But without the expectations of her subjects and the pressure on her to represent how they see themselves, Judit is able to draw more honestly and experiment more with form and expression.

Although she has worked with other materials, it’s in coloured pencil that Judit feels most at home. Whereas other media make Judit feel like a “technician, doing changes driven by visuality”, the cumulative nature of pencils – with its layering of colours – allows her to feel like she’s amending something that already exists, honing a work until she’s brought it to state of completion. “The pace in drawing enables me to have the feeling that drives me to do a drawing when I do the drawing, and it gives me a relief when I'm done,” she explains.

In fact a quick pace – especially in drawings – is something Judit really appreciates in other peoples’ work. “I feel like the pace makes the artist more present in drawings than in other forms of art practice, and that makes drawings extra magical for me.”

GalleryAll images copyright © Judit Kristensen, 2018

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Copyright © Judit Kristensen, 2018

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About the Author

Laura Snoad

Laura is a London-based arts journalist who has been working for It’s Nice That on a freelance basis since 2016.

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