In a painting career spanning four decades, Judy Ledgerwood has confronted and expanded the history of abstract painting by decentering perceptions of its neutrality and prioritizing visual engagement and pleasure. Drawing upon rich and diverse sources from the realms of both fine art and popular culture, Ledgerwood’s optically bold, large-scale canvases engage viewers in active looking and challenge conventional notions of beauty and taste. She explores light, color, and structure with great specificity, and early on in her career, she embraced traditionally feminine colors like pastels, pinks, and fluorescent hues to undermine the male-dominated milieu of abstract painting. Through repetitive circular shapes and her signature quatrefoil pattern, Ledgerwood bends and relaxes the grid, bringing influences from the Pattern & Decoration movement, quilting, and textiles into the arena of her paintings. Ledgerwood’s work includes an exploration of architectural spaces through her creation of monumental wall paintings and environmental installations, which have been exhibited at The Art Institute of Chicago and Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, among other venues.

Judy Ledgerwood (b. 1959, Brazil, Indiana) received a BFA from the Art Academy of Cincinnati and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has held solo exhibitions at numerous venues, including the Graham Foundation, the Smart Museum of Art, The Art Institute of Chicago, and The Renaissance Society in Chicago; Häusler Contemporary in Zurich, Switzerland, Munich, Germany and Lustenau, Austria; and Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at the Milwaukee Art Museum, Wisconsin; the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; the David Owsley Museum of Art, Ball State University, Muncie, Indiana; the University of Kentucky Art Museum, Lexington, Kentucky; and Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY. She has received awards from the Driehaus Foundation, Artadia, The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, and Illinois Art Council. Ledgerwood is professor emeritus at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, where she served as Chair of the Department of Art Theory and Practice. She lives and works between Chicago and Sawyer, Michigan.