The Ohio Artist Registry (OAR) is an exciting opportunity for artists to share their work, connect with the creative community, and establish an online presence—all on a free, virtual platform! The OAR encourages artists working in all art forms, throughout Ohio and beyond, to create a profile, which allows them to better promote themselves and their work. Being listed in the OAR provides artists with new opportunities to share their work with clients, galleries, patrons, and audiences. A listing in the OAR does not confer an endorsement, approval, or verification by the Ohio Arts Council.
For more information, contact Kathy Signorino, artist programs director, at kathy.signorino@oac.ohio.gov or 614-728-6140.
2024 Ohio Artist Registry Juried Exhibition
Judy Takacs
Judy Takács Paints PeopleBio
Judy Takács paints people…always people
Figurative Realist Painter, Judy Takács is best known for her traveling oil portrait series, Chicks with Balls: Judy Takács paints unsung female heroes, which opened as her first solo museum show in early 2020 at the Zanesville Museum of Art. A winner of fifteen Best-In-Show awards and three Ohio Arts Council Individual Artistic Excellence Grants in the past decade, she has curated, juried and exhibited in solo, group and juried shows at museums, art centers and colleges nationally. She began her art career in 1986 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Cleveland Institute of Art.
Her work has shown at the Butler Institute of American Art, ArtNEO Museum, MOCA Cleveland, Zanesville Museum of Art, Evansville Museum, Haggin Museum, Artists Archives of the Western Reserve, Brookgreen Gardens, Salmagundi, and National Arts Clubs. She has been featured and in Poets/Artists Magazine, Fine Art Connoisseur, the Portrait Society Members Journal and was 2018 Grand Prize Winner in the Artists Magazine All-Media Competition. Takács’ work has been written about by Cleveland Scene Magazine, Creative Arts Network (CAN) Journal and The Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Her accomplishments noted on Wikipedia, Takács holds Elected and Signature Status memberships with Portrait Society of America, Akron Society of Artists, American Women Artists, Salmagundi, Catharine Lorillard Wolfe and Allied Artists of America where she serves as Social Media Chair. Past Social Media Chair and writer for the Portrait Society of America, she has written, directed and hosted almost 100 episodes of Living Figuratively, her facebook live broadcast, now on YouTube, designed to inspire viewers to fall in love with and fill their homes with figurative art.
Finding inspiration in working on a long term series, since 2017, Takács has been painting women for the Goddess Project, where she re-imagines the characters from the mythology of all the religions through a contemporary feminist lens.
Takács’ challenge as a painter of people is to create a living breathing soul on canvas to invite viewers to linger, connect and think. Her goal is always to try to save the world, one painting at a time.
Artist Statement
“Saving the World One Painting at a Time” has long been my mantra. My work focuses on feminist human rights issues and seeks to give women a spotlight, a voice and some long overdue credit.
I also love the idea of the Big Project.
In 2009 I embarked upon a figurative portrait series designed to honor real women, unsung heroes who function all around us to make the world better. Chicks with Balls: Judy Takács paints unsung female heroes is now 50 paintings strong. They are all portraits of women; old friends, family and women who volunteered to pose for me…topless, with balls of their choosing to symbolize their strengths and struggles.
These are ordinary women of extraordinary courage, perseverance, dedication and strength. Many have battled cancer, gone through excruciating divorces, suffered heartbreaking loss and yet persevered in caring for their loved ones and for the world at large. Often they must keep secrets to protect those they love and never get the credit they deserve for all they do. I keep their secrets, but honor their achievements through my Chicks with Balls portraits.
The Chicks collection has traveled to Ohio and Pennsylvania and debut as my first solo Museum show in early 2020 at the Zanesville Museum of Art. I have published two books of Chicks paintings where I have included the short, medium and long stories behind each woman’s portrait.
In 2018 I began to turn my focus to other ways I could save the world one painting at a time, put a laser focus on feminist issues and began The Goddess Project. For my Goddess paintings, I re-imagine the mythology and legends from all the religions through a contemporary feminist lens.
In researching these stories, I found a fascinating treasure trove of characters, and stories that have fueled our prejudices and pre-coincieved notions…which needed correction.
I found that Medusa was actually a rape victim whose #metoo story had devastating consequences and painted, #Me(dusa)too. I found the commonality between the Eve and Pandora stories where the first woman created was harshly punished for intellectual curiosity…heck, in both cases the whole world was punished! I take on the images that the Renaissance and antiquity gave us and redefine Venus as a Black woman, Apollo as an older woman and the Sphynx as a newly transitioned woman.
And now, with Roe v Wade overturned and Ohio on the forefront of denying women, children and all people who can get pregnant their right to determine their healthcare decisions and chart the course of their reproductive lives, I turn my paintbrush to Pro Choice works. A fledgling series that began with two Goddess Project paintings where I reimagined Michelangelo’s David as a woman taking down the Patriarchy, my mission is to tackle this vital human rights issue and, Make Abortion Safe and Legal…Again. MASALA.