flowers, friezes & frescoes
by Pat Nicholson
Wendy Artin, Three Poppies, 15 x 24 cm each, watercolor, 2024
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Dancing poppies, Persian Archers and Roman ruins, American Artist Wendy Artin’s delicate mastery of watercolor brings ancient and ephemeral beauty to life in her latest exhibition, Flowers, Friezes and Frescoes.
Featuring 50 exquisite watercolors, her work captures fleeting moments, drawing inspiration from 1st Century BC Roman frescoes of Livia’s Garden, vibrant Persian archers from the Royal Palace of Darius I, poppies in bloom, ancient ruins and her ongoing collaboration with life models.
Wendy Artin, Darius Archers, 57 x 138 cm each, watercolor, 2024
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“Pigments drift as water evaporates until the paint settles in the right place to evoke the image. Whether painting watercolors of frescoes, enameled brick tiles, ruins or red poppies, I try to give the viewer a feeling of total familiarity, a feeling that the painting is exactly what they love about the subject matter, while showing the magic of images created with puddles of colored water,” said Artin.
From ephemeral to eternal
In a series of delicate paintings of poppies, the fragile stems hold up brilliant blooms, like red crepe paper with infinitely dark blackish blue centers, crisscrossed velvety black patterns, stamens and seeds.
“The poppies are fleeting, they soon curl up and disappear. I painted the spring flowers every day until the gardeners of Villa Doria Pamphilj mowed them down,” said the Rome-based painter.
Wendy Artin, Palatino, 70 x 102 cm, watercolor, 2024
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The exhibition features the largest landscape painting Artin has produced -- a double landscape of 70 cm x 200 cm – that depicts Rome’s Palatine Hill, home to the ruins of temples and imperial palaces, set against a backdrop of pine trees with their iconic towering foliage tops.
Artin revisits the frescoes of Livia’s Garden, housed at the Museo Nazionale Romano di Palazzo Massimo, conveying not only their vibrant colors but also the weathered beauty of their erosion. Fragmentary, the frescoes buzz with birds, plants, color and washed out spaces.
“The question is how to tackle the texture of erosion. I began by painting small Japanese-y pieces before scaling up to larger works. I hoped to break free from describing Livia’s Garden, to capture what it feels like to be standing before the frescoes,” she said.
Wendy Artin, Darius Griffin, 70 x 102 cm, watercolor, 2024
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The exhibition also showcases Persian friezes from the palace of Darius I, featuring detailed depictions of archers and mythical creatures. Artin captures the interplay between the glazed bricks and the gaps between them, inviting viewers to piece together the images.
“The white mortar between the glazed enamel bricks is visually fascinating in part because your eye needs to work to connect the image behind it. I love the way the friezes made up of many different smaller images, the bricks, like pixels on a gigantic multiscreen image,” said Artin.
Also included are dynamic male nude studies, reflecting Artin’s ongoing collaboration with live models. These figures, caught in fluid motion, echo the transient nature of both human life and ancient civilizations.
Artist Acclaim and Awards
Wendy Artin was recently honored with the 2023 Arthur Ross Award for Excellence in the Classical Tradition by the Institute of Classical Architecture & Art (ICAA). She studied at the Museum School in Boston and the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris.
Pat Nicholson
October 2024
Wendy Artin, Three fragments from Livia’s Garden, 13 x 24 cm each, watercolor, 2024