Wendy Artin, Half Pomegranate, 6.5″ x 6.5″, watercolor, 2021
✽ ✽ ✽
FLOW
November 2021, Gurari Collections, Boston
American watercolorist Wendy Artin finds joy in the visual in a series of daring pieces for her new show, titled Flow. The artist is inspired by the sky and the soil, the ethereal and the earthy, the humble and the heavenly in over 70 watercolours, all on white paper.
Her subjects include fruits, vegetables and shellfish from her local Roman market, the city’s pine trees against its azure skies, urban wild flowers, beloved pencil stubs, old toys, and celestial statues of angels and injured Amazons.
“The show is called Flow as I’m working with wetter paint. Watercolors can be controlled, but some of these pieces are verging on disorder. I move the paint around and watch what happens, pulling delicate images out of a puddle of color,” said Artin.
Flow might also describe the loss of a sense of permanence in the wake of a pandemic that upended the way we live, and for the artist slowed down time.
Wendy Artin, Putto Pouring Ambrosia, 30″ x 22.5″, watercolor, 2021
✽ ✽ ✽
“It was beautiful looking up at the pines trees in that period of confinement. I wanted to see if watercolour on the right surface would flow naturally into the circular shapes that the needles make,” she said. “It was a moment for looking up at the heavens.”
At the same time, she was painting statues of chubby angelic Putti, of a voluptuous goddess abundant with fertility, of Mercury and Psyche, and a large composition of an Amazonian rider, dynamic, sparse and stark, falling from her horse.
Wendy Artin, Trees, Villa Doria Pamphilj, 7″ x 7″, watercolor, 2021
✽ ✽ ✽
Beside these larger pieces are paintings of the produce and plants Artin had at hand, continuing themes explored in her 2020 show, Lush: Flora e Fauna dalla Quarantena. Even with the use of wetter paint and even in the smallest of the pieces, her brush is delicate and precise.
“The still lifes are riskier, more wash-y,” she said. “The radicchio is chaos, pulled back. The half pomegranate is a wild exploration of the kaleidoscope of colors diffracted by the seeds. It seemed intimate and humbling during lockdown to paint these fruits, vegetables and other objects to hand.”
Wendy Artin, Yellow Roga Pencil, and Cadmium Yellow Tube, watercolor, 2021
✽ ✽ ✽
The show includes pairs of scissors, a child’s letter blocks (spelling out “FLOW”), paint brushes, the essential tube of cadmium yellow, and favorite pencil stubs ransacked from her son’s room.
“These simple objects make it easy to be really bold, so much so that it’s almost a relief,” said Artin. “What I love most is releasing myself into the activity of seeing. The joy I get from painting is the same joy that I hope I give to people looking at my work. I want these still lifes to be a triumph of the humble.”
Wendy Artin, Block F, 10 cm x 10 cm, watercolor, 2021
✽ ✽ ✽
Artistic Advisor at the American Academy in Rome, Wendy Artin completed her undergraduate studies in French Literature and Painting at the University of Pennsylvania and her Masters of Fine Art at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. In 2015 she had a solo exhibition, entitled Rocks, Paper, Memory, at the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She has exhibited in New York, Boston, Rome, Milan and Paris. Her work has been featured in Pratique Des Arts, American Artist, The New York Observer, Vanity Fair, Gourmet, Elle Decoration, Cote Sud, French Vogue, Elle, Carnet, and the Boston Globe, among other publications. She has been featured on BRAVO television’s Arts & Minds.
Wendy Artin, Injured Amazon on Horse, Naples, 40.5″ x 42″, 2021