⏳ Acquisition Throwback ⏳ Looking back to July 2022, when the Contemporary Art Society purchased 'Untitled (opening cage and ribs displayed)' by Harminder Judge (@harminderjudge ) from The Sunday Painter, London, with support from the Government Art Collection. Harminder Judge’s exuberant paintings transport viewers beyond the flat planes of his images into a cosmic realm of open horizons and rich colour fields. Inspired by sources as diverse as Indian Neo-Tantric painting and Euro-American Abstract Expressionism, Judge’s works are produced through a multi-stage alchemical process that begins by layering pigments into pools of wet plaster that, when dry, produce what Judge has called ‘augmented plaster’, and which Judge then excavates by sanding, polishing and oiling. The work is composed of abstracted figures that span both surfaces and loosely gesture to the painting’s title, an oblique reference to the artist’s own experience as a teenager visiting Amritsar, in India’s Punjab region. During this trip, Judge participated in funerary rites and witnessed the transformation of corporeal matter into ash. These materials and the experience of observing these transitions between states seem to inform this painting, imbuing it with a potent mix of light and shade and giving rise to the dark shape at its centre. Harminder Judge (b. Rotherham, Yorkshire, UK 1982) studied fine art at Northumbria University (2002-05) and graduated from the Royal Academy Schools, London (2021). Judge lives and works in London. In 2022/23, 'Untitled (opening cage and ribs displayed)' was presented to the Government Art Collection. © Harminder Judge