JUDITH ALLEN-EFSTATHIOU was born in Athens, Georgia, U.S.A., but grew up in New York and studied visual arts at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, and Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts. Judith was awarded a fellowship by the Museum of Fine Arts for one year of international travel. This led to a three-decade stay in Athens, Greece, where she became a naturalized Greek citizen. In 2000 she returned to the U.S.A. and began spending six months in the U.S.A. and six months in Greece. Her artwork is informed by her negotiations between these two cultures.
In Greece, Judith divides her time between Athens and the island of Kea. On Kea she loves hiking along the island’s ancient network of mule trails. In her project “Mapping the Walk” (in progress since 2011), she documents her walks by drawing the wildflowers she observes on a single footpath each month of the year. The drawings and related artwork were exhibited in Botanical Rhapsody at Martinos Gallery, Athens, Greece, in 2020. The first 36 of these drawings are now in the permanent collection of the Gennadius Library of the American School of Classical Studies, Athens, and can be viewed on request (AF-A42/C1Q). Judith is a member of the AFI artists’ collective in Athens and has exhibited with AFI at the Benaki Museum, Athens (2009 and 2014).
In the U.S.A., Judith’s work focuses on public art depicting the trees of the northern forest where she often spends time hiking. Her relief sculptures in acid-cut, vintage copper salvaged from the Maine State House dome hang permanently in the Maine State House (installed August 2017), in the Waldo Justice Center, Belfast, Maine (2019), and in Caribou Community School, Caribou, Maine (2020). Her artwork is represented in the collections of the Portland Museum of Art, Portland, Maine, and the Farnsworth Museum, Rockland, Maine. She lives in Portland, Maine, and has taught printmaking at the University of Southern Maine and Maine College of Art.
Website: www.judithallenstudios.com
Translation: Maria Gargaroni