WENDY GIVENS

 

ARTIST STATEMENT

Creating art is a joyful and challenging process. I enjoy the challenge of transforming a blank canvas by shape, color and texture into something that can bring delight to the viewer. It is very rewarding to see a painting connect with a person.

I paint in acrylics and my work is all about color and shapes within which I find subjects with a touch of whimsy that emerge through the painting process. I work with a limited palette of colors that is consistent throughout all of my paintings. This helps to unify my paintings into a cohesive body of work. Many of my paintings incorporate texture, which can be built up using molding paste, drizzled tar gel or collaged rice paper. Sometimes I pull out older pieces that I am not completely satisfied with and use their texture as a jumping off point to develop a new work. As I establish new colored shapes, turn the canvas, work a bit more, eventually one of the shapes will stand out and I will find the subject for my painting. I continue to develop shapes and colors to unify and complete the composition. It's a process that I find enjoyable, stirs my creativity and keeps me coming back to my easel.

 

Growing up in the Willamette Valley in Oregon, Wendy had a love of nature and animals, and from an early age she enjoyed drawing them. In high school and college she took as many art classes as she could, while getting her degree in Elementary Education.

After marriage and raising a family, she went back to school and got an associate degree in graphic design which provided more instruction in color, composition and the basic art elements. She and her husband then started a giclee printing business for artists. Being surrounded by such great art inspired her to get back into her own drawing and painting. 

Wendy's colorful, whimsical work has been shown in Northwest galleries and local art shows. She has also been a part of the "Art in Public Spaces” program, with her work hanging in several hospital galleries and public service buildings in Clackamas County.