Judy Moonelis

1953 Born Jackson Heights, New York

EDUCATION

1975 BFA Tyler School of Art, Temple University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

1978 MFA New York State College of Ceramics, Alfred University, Alfred, New York

PRIMARY WORK EXPERIENCE

—Rockford College, Rockford, Illinois

—Greenwich House, New York, New York

1984-1987 Instructor, The New School, Parsons School of Design, New York, New York

—Fairleigh Dickenson University, Teaneck, New Jersey

1978—Studio artist

BIOGRAPHY

 Judy Moonelis has created several bodies of sculptural work each related to a human characteristic including memory, listening, touch, and breath. The work is created using a number of clay forming techniques including hand-building, wheel-throwing, slabs, and pinching.

Moonelis is one of a small group of east coast ceramic sculptors, including Judy Fox and Sergei Isupov, who focus on the figure and a larger national group of established sculptors that includes Viola Frey, Robert Arneson, Mary Frank, Stephen DeStaebler, Jack Earl, and Robert Brady.  Moonilis draws inspiration from medical and anatomical images. Many of her early sculptures are one-sided slabs with a definite front and back, both surfaces fully articulated and finished with different themes. This allowed her to express more than one thought in a piece.  Gradually she began to make pieces to be seen in the round.  Moonelis has always been fascinated with the human body and has used it repeatedly to express her ideas. By 2014 she was creating large installations that grew out of her research about the inside of the body and how it relates to the outside. 

 In 1991 she was awarded the First Place Prize from the Virginia A. Groot Foundation competition.