Jude Warham
Born to an underclass family in Dublin in ‘98, I left home abruptly in my teens. Fifteen schools and nineteen addresses later I discover the Northeast of England at age 16 in 2014 and it has been my home ever since.
Being raised between Irish and British families I’ve always felt my place in either societies as somewhat dissonant, never truly belonging to either, an outsider. When I began writing on walls I found solace in the colourful yet elusive graffiti scene because I could create where and when I wanted. Encouraged by a mentor to enrol on an access course as a mature art student, I left my role as a full-time chef and the rest is history.
What about my practise?
Well I’ve always loved art but coming from a working class background with very little creative opportunities ‘fine art’ was something unaccessible. I couldn’t afford oil paints or even paper to draw on. What I had came from teachers who were kind enough to support me. The rest of my materials were found in dumpsters and borrowed off the streets. Because of this, my practise today sees found surfaces reworked, pressed, reduced and manipulated to create new forms on which I add my now post-graffiti style of painting. I adopt, respond and celebrate the urban environment by incorporating objects, posters, newspapers with pigments, dirt and grit to create texture. My practise is a never ending conversation that questions the bureaucracy’s views on street art as a working class product, often in the form of large-scale paintings which mirror buffed city walls soon to be painted again and again.