Wendy Artin - From Fausta's Garden, watercolors, 2020
✽ ✽ ✽
Lush
Flora e fauna della quarantena
November 2020, Gurari Collections, Boston
Writing by Michael Frank
Writing by Jonathan Nossiter
Writing by Wendy Artin
Link to catalogue
Each painting in this show represents something luscious that I have seen. When I paint with watercolor, I try to make each mark count, to make each stroke of the brush describe what I am looking at, to get the right puddle on the paper and capture life. Sometimes the puddle has a skinny red edge, sometimes a soft burst of pigment, sometimes a lucky watery accident.
Wendy Artin - Clover Conversation, 18 cm x 25 cm, watercolor, 2020
✽ ✽ ✽
Each painting in this show represents something luscious that I have seen. When I paint with watercolor, I try to make each mark count, to make each stroke of the brush describe what I am looking at, to get the right puddle on the paper and capture life. Sometimes the puddle has a skinny red edge, sometimes a soft burst of pigment, sometimes a lucky watery accident.
Wendy Artin, Farnese Sarcophagus, 28" x 73", watercolor, 2020
✽ ✽ ✽
The centerpiece is a large commissioned watercolor from the 2nd century Roman Farnese Sarcophagus. Satyrs and women cavort in revelry, gathering grapes, pulling at tunics and exchanging amorous glances. The thick slab of marble is echoed in the thin surface of water and pigment on paper, with shapes of washes that evoke the light and movement of ancient figures.
Wendy Artin, Callista Scare, 28cm x 48cm, watercolor, 2020
✽ ✽ ✽
Figure drawing sessions have always been a golden spot of my week, a few hours during which the world melts away and the only thing that exists is trying to capture something of the model in a pose that will soon vanish.
Suddenly early this spring the whole of humanity was immobilized. Forced to abandon live sessions, I pulled out videos of models I had taken pre-lockdown. I became entranced by the positions in the middle of a movement, poses that are physical, private and oblivious, like someone exercising alone, poses that no model could ever hold long enough live for a watercolor to be made.
Wendy Artin, Barely open Fig, 13 x 15 cm, watercolor, 2020
✽ ✽ ✽
One day slipped into the next, as I took my small bag of trash out for a walk up the Gianicolo hill to the dumpsters, and each day, brought home a new stem of clover to paint. I had never realized how utterly beautiful clover is, how fascinating, how endlessly challenging. I filled bowls, vases, the kitchen sink...
During this strangely silent time, my studio wall became covered with figures caught off balance, stretching and flowing, alive and dynamic, and also clover, painted over and over.
When lockdown eased, the gardens of friends were in full flourish, and I gladly received nature's bounty, from strawberries and turnips to cherries and figs. To paint and to eat, with simplicity and appreciation.
Wendy Artin, Devata, Indian Dancer, 58 x 78 cm, watercolor, 2020
✽ ✽ ✽
From the revelry of ancient bucolic satyrs and maidens, to the humble clover, the flowing figures, and the fruits and flowers, these are paintings about the luscious cycle of life.