I guard my heart publicly, but I crack it open when I paint. A bold colorist with a drawing foundation and a painterly style, I create surfaces that pulsate with depth and rhythm and images that encapsulate memories. While the thought behind each painting evolves over time in my mind, my process of creating requires immediacy—letting one moment flow into another, banishing analytic tendencies. My paintings combine overlapping textures and loose painterly brushwork, illuminating experiences and emotions that connect us. The pure fluidity of drawn lines and layered colors suggests the feeling of dreaming, moving seamlessly and playfully from one place to another. These resulting paintings explore and celebrate the curiosity and wonder we share about our purpose and place in this world.
More About Me
Judy McSween is a Charleston based artist who paints familiar abstracts to document inspiring life experiences. A native of Warren Ohio, and a graduate of Bowling Green State University with a BFA specialization in painting, McSween also taught elementary and middle school art in Ohio and South Carolina for over twenty years. She credits her students with teaching her to interpret her surroundings with fresh eyes and to instill joy in her work.
McSween works by alternating between realism and intuition, taking a drawn image and deconstructing the composition to find its essence. Her style combines delicately blended brushwork with bold palette knife marks and sensitive line work. Through a process of applying paint, wiping it away, drawing into it, and scraping through layers, she exposes pathways, leading viewers through her paintings to spaces infused with light and color. That light— beyond the horizon, spilling into a field, or captured for a split second along an edge, is McSween’s signature.
Influenced by the underwater abstracts of Bob Mazur, her painting professor at Bowling Green State University, McSween draws inspiration for her own work from the places she’s lived, from her childhood home in Northeast Ohio to her current home in Charleston, SC. An explorer of the National Parks and outdoor spaces, she brings the serenity and power of nature into her paintings.
Her awards include People Choice Award in Perspectives:The Art of Abstract 2024, Honorable Mention in Amethyst International Juried Exhibit April 2023, Best Painting in Piccolo Spoleto Juried Art Exhibit at Charleston's City Gallery 2022, Honorable Mention for her paintings at the 2019 Piccolo Spoleto Outdoor Art Exhibit In Charleston, SC, Honorable Mentions in North Charleston’s Festival of the Arts both in oils and acrylics, second prize in South Haven Michigan’s 2018 Art of the Sea, and an Award of Excellence in Clermont Florida’s Champions for the Arts 2016. In 2017, she was selected as the Design Winner of the The City of North Charleston Arts Fest Design Competition. As the winner of the statewide contest, McSween’s abstract oil painting, titled Scraping the Sky II, was used to promote the 2017 North Charleston Arts Fest, and the painting became part of the City’s permanent Public Art Collection.
McSween advocates for art to educate and uplift. Her collectors and fans enjoy videos of her painting process and photos of work in progress as well as her reflective and educational monthly newsletters. She is represented by the Dare Gallery in downtown Charleston SC, the Sandpiper Gallery on Sullivan's Island, SC. She is a member of the National Association of Women Artists and The National Oil and Acrylic Painters Society.