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Wendy Widell Wolff

The West is my home. Prior roots take me back to northern midwestern lakes, verdant woods, and farming. As a transplant, I’ve come to relate to this new rural culture, thanks to a family cabin. In keeping with local tradition cowboy boots have found their way to the bottom of my feet. Slowly becoming a Westerner has made me appreciate how a cultural identity actually seeds and grows. I compose pictures that seek a sense of place, even belonging.

In looking at my work, notice classic themes: Four Seasons, Night and Day, Home, Trees and Grass. Timelessness. Technically, I travel a route through the influence of art history: Regionalism, Post-Impressionism, and Folk Art. Conceptually, I wrestle with a preoccupation over the increasing polarization between local and global.

Our cultural thrust has urged momentum toward a global worldview. Has this perspective overshadowed the intimacy of our nearby communities? Longing for home and all the familiarity it implies is natural for human beings.

In spending time with people in rural areas I’m curious to learn their perspectives and observations. I wonder what I’ve missed by living a life cluttered with so many non-essentials and non-stop busyness.

As an artist, I set out to pare images down to their essence. Then I paint from an internal world, pointing to “something else” in contemplative pursuit of a vein of truth.

I believe memory and history unearth ideas that point quietly to deeper parts of an observers own essence. Looking at silent paintings, we can hear whatever we allow ourselves. Hope is that viewers will rediscover a lost thought, maybe a forgotten memory, or even a glimpse of the invisible.

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