Wendy Painter
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Bio ^
Wendy Morrison Painter began her creative endeavors as a child, which led her to pursue an education in design. As an architecture student at North Carolina State University’s School of Design, she focused on painting, pottery, photography, life drawing and graphics. “When I exhibited my paintings for the first time at an SOD art show,” the then budding artist says, “ I sold almost every one. I was hooked. I loved the fact that other people enjoyed what I created.”
After a 20-year professional career in housing and community development, Wendy started a home-based housing consultant business in 1992. “This opportunity gave me more time and energy to pursue the profession I believe is my calling—that of an artist,” she says. With more control of her time--and with easy access to her Raleigh studio--Wendy focused on exhibiting and selling her work. She joined the Raleigh Art Alliance and the Visual Art Exchange, and participated in local workshops and painting classes. Her time and effort paid off. She has shown successfully in juried shows throughout North Carolina.
Wendy’s abstract paintings exhibit vibrant colors and textured layers created by various techniques. Each layer of paint is applied with purpose, building upon soft washes and energetic brush strokes, alternating with swipes of a palette knife’s flat edge. Heavy watercolor paper is Wendy’s favorite painting surface; she uses large square canvases and dramatically narrow, horizontal surfaces as well.
“Each painting represents the many dimensions of ourselves,” Wendy explains. “Each layer, each texture, is a reflection of a point in our consciousness, many not known to us until we are made aware of them.” Her paintings are powerful tools that guide observers through the myriad layers of their conscious and unconscious selves, eventually leading to self-knowledge and understanding. Each work has a point of entry specifically created to open this window of opportunity.
Wendy’s desire is not only for her paintings to be appreciated for their vibrant colors and unique textures, but perhaps most of all, that they find their way to individuals who covet them for their beneficial self-awareness powers.
A Durham native, Wendy has lived in “Little” Washington, Edenton, and now in Raleigh with her husband Keith.
Artist Statement ^
About the Paintings…
How do I explain the paintings that I do? I believe strongly that they bring a message. A message that is important for the owner to have. It is a message about their purpose here, their path and what is needed to move forward, to stay on this path, or to find this path. The paintings offer an opportunity, a window of opportunity to discover this message and to understand this message. We all know very little, cognitively, about why our soul is on the earth. Why it has inhabited this body and what gift it brings to this place.
The paintings have a message of clarity, of energy, a message that will give immediate information about the next step - the place, the action. It will also provide information about where you came from. The many places that your soul has been, the path that your soul has followed and where it must go, with your participation.
The information comes through the paintings in the form of energy. Color, texture - it is all tied to the energy of the information. The color, texture, and composition just provide the entry point - the attraction, the connection. What is of value is what comes after the recognition that “this is for me, this is something that speaks to me that resonates with me”. Once that connection is made the information is free to move, the energy is free to move into your life, into your consciousness. Before, it was in the subconscious.
It is not something that some one else imparts upon you. It is yours, it is available only to you. It waits for your recognition, your connection. Then the information comes in through the window, the painting. It is a gift that is yours, a gift of your past and your future. It is your higher self, speaking directly to you in a way that you will understand - directly through your soul.
When you see something of beauty, there is a connection. You allow that beauty to enter you heart, your soul. It washes over you and gives you something - its energy. Its purpose in life is shown to you. We all have that purpose, to somehow bring to this world something of value. Viewing and owning this painting gives you a sourcebook, an energetic connection with all that is yours. It will be as if you are viewing something beautiful, it will wash over you with all that is you, all that will be you. It is your gift from your soul. It is a gift from the essence of life, the energy that connects all of us.