Wendy Saunders

“I have been constructing these new painting supports specifically to act as carriers for a number of ideas relating to the reading of human countenance and emotion….I make the stretchers to represent a head shape.  They are an evolved, abstracted representation of the human form but are they portraits? Using a combination of surface and materials I then attempt to evoke visual ideas of character, states of emotion or some form of human expression. 

Sometimes they work well and activate a psychological reading merely with the addition of coloured paint which taps into our memory or acts as a trigger about a person or people more generally.  I experiment with ways that the materials can be used to drive these anthropomorphic representations and where that can go in terms of representing either a state of mind, some form of behaviour or ideas about the human condition” Wendy Saunders 2018


Wendy started painting mid-life with trademark drive & questioning vigour. Initially a figurative painter, there began a move towards abstraction. 

Following an artists residency at Matt Roberts Arts in 2012 she started to exhibit. In 2013 her work was selected for the Threadneedle Prize exhibition, in 2014 she exhibited at Cheltenham Art Gallery in The Open West & was long listed for Charlie Smith’s Anthology open call. Her work was selected for the ING Discerning Eye in 2015 & 16, in 2016 she exhibited at the RA Summer Exhibition, she then began to exhibit internationally; in 2016 in NYC & China, 2017 China & 2018 Berlin.

She commenced the MA Fine Art course at City & Guilds London Art School in Autumn 2017. The next year saw her practice evolve significantly; students & tutors helped her unlock & inform the direction of her painting. Always & very strongly her own person, she was at the same time avid for input. A restless traveller, her journey came to a premature end in April 2019

artist’s website