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Judith Cunningham is a California native who transplanted to Oregon in 1966. After twenty years of a rainy climate and burnout from a high-pressure career in advertising, she moved to the rolling wheat lands and dry, high desert plateaus of eastern Oregon. She began painting the eastern Columbia River Gorge and basaltic scabland, focusing on sky, rock, river and the effects of atmosphere, weather and light.

Her years of graphic design work provide a basic attitude of design toward her compositions while maintaining awareness for the ethereal essence at a specific location. This is my real work: recognizing the energy of the ethereal. The rest of the process is simply technique, an outcome of practice.”

She has been working with the pastel medium since 1986, and has had yearly solo shows in Portland and the Columbia River Gorge, won awards in state and local invitational shows along with Northwest Pastel society shows, and is in many corporate and private collections.

Nature is the primary source of inspiration in my life and work. Vast uncluttered space, horizons that stay out of reach, windy exposed cliffs, mysterious gorges, cloud formations, a nebulous kind of atmosphere...these energize me and give a sense of connection with the universe. My work is about exploring the natural environment with an openness of heart and an intuitive vision, a quest to re-unite with the subtle ethereal essence that transcends surface images. My intent is to communicate this essence, to inspire as well as ease the stress of daily existence.