Wendy Artin, Federica Curl, 8″ x 9″, watercolor on paper, 2021
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Flesh and Stone
November 2022, Gurari Collections, Boston
In her newest exhibition Rome-based American artist Wendy Artin offers us the beauty of the human body with a series of forty shimmering watercolors and ten ink line drawings. By an almost alchemical process Artin transforms water and pigment into breathtaking image. Flesh and Stone ranges in subject matter from classical antiquity to the contemporary nude, celebrating the transformative nature of art where stone becomes flesh and flesh becomes divine.
Wendy Artin, Parthenon Procession, 86″ x 40″, watercolor, 2022
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“The greatest moments are when the paintings seem to magically make themselves, when the tiny clumps of pigment suspended in water settle in just the right place to describe the curve of a thigh, of a belly, and then dry. I chanced upon beauty, finding it in a sculpture across the room from the one I planned to paint, in the unexpected return of a favorite model, in what I could coax out of a puddle of watercolor on the paper,” said Artin.
Wendy Artin, Andrea Curl, Andrea Adonis, 7″ x 13″, watercolor, 2022
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At the heart of show are a series of watercolors of life models Andrea and Federica. Captured in ivory black paint on printmaking paper, Andrea appears as a statue turned to flesh, all curly hair, muscle and classical poses. In contrast are the nudes of Federica, like stills from an astonishing and unpredictable dance performance.
The ink drawings are a new take on the figure: spontaneous, playful, verging on the abstract.
Wendy Artin, three ink drawings of Mariangela, 8″ x 12″ each, 2022
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Artin has been inspired by antiquity since her days of slipping in and out of the Louvre as a young student in Paris. The centerpiece of Flesh and Stone is the Parthenon Frieze from the Louvre, replete with marble surface becoming abstraction and repetition, as draped women make a procession to worship the goddess Athena. Also from the Louvre are the irresistible Michelangelo Slaves and the brilliant piece of drama that is Paul-Ambroise Slodtz’s Icarus with its beautiful torso. There are three graces from Ancient Greece, a winged putto, a dancing faun and an Indian goddess, among others.
Wendy Artin, Winged Eros and Butterfly, 7″ x 9″, watercolor, 2022
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“From watercolors of classical sculpture to the striking poses of my life models to the experimental ink line drawings, Flesh and Stone is a celebration of the human figure,” said Wendy Artin.
Wendy Artin, Icarus after Slodtz, 28″ x 40″, watercolor on paper, 2022