About my work
My practice addresses an exploration of my relationship with the past and embraces my interest in the uncanny. Dolls and mannequins have always appealed to me as an inspiration and vehicle for my wax portraits. They provide a substantial base from which to work, in both a meaningful and a practical sense. Making the work involves a combination of destruction and assembly processes that articulate the sentiment of damage and repair within personal evolution. This is often echoed by the use of stitch and pins and needles throughout the work. I mainly produce work using wax and papier mache, but often include toys and painted vinyl doll parts.
My work is, in the main, autobiographical and communicates ideas about significant relationships and childhood memories and my emotional response to these.
Gallery Director Zavier Ellis states:
Wendy is an incredibly accomplished technician who renders her wax figures from clay sculptures derived from family photographs. There is a strong sense of nostalgia and of the uncanny, resulting in highly charged psychological works.
Link
Brian Sewell has described her as a ‘craftsman’ and Richard Dorment wrote in the Telegraph that ‘her sculptures look as if they were made by Louise Bourgeois in a bad mood. She sews creepy little dolls with strange proportions and adult faces, and then arranges them in what should be harmless domestic scenes that don’t feel harmless at all.’
My practice addresses an exploration of my relationship with the past and embraces my interest in the uncanny. Dolls and mannequins have always appealed to me as an inspiration and vehicle for my wax portraits. They provide a substantial base from which to work, in both a meaningful and a practical sense. Making the work involves a combination of destruction and assembly processes that articulate the sentiment of damage and repair within personal evolution. This is often echoed by the use of stitch and pins and needles throughout the work. I mainly produce work using wax and papier mache, but often include toys and painted vinyl doll parts.
My work is, in the main, autobiographical and communicates ideas about significant relationships and childhood memories and my emotional response to these.
Gallery Director Zavier Ellis states:
Wendy is an incredibly accomplished technician who renders her wax figures from clay sculptures derived from family photographs. There is a strong sense of nostalgia and of the uncanny, resulting in highly charged psychological works.
Link
Brian Sewell has described her as a ‘craftsman’ and Richard Dorment wrote in the Telegraph that ‘her sculptures look as if they were made by Louise Bourgeois in a bad mood. She sews creepy little dolls with strange proportions and adult faces, and then arranges them in what should be harmless domestic scenes that don’t feel harmless at all.’