GUGGLETON FARM ART
STATION ROAD
STALBRIDGE
DORSET
DT10 2RQ
Opening: TUES - SAT, 11 - 3pm
Venue contact number: 01963 353456
Website: www.guggletonfarmarts.com
Maxime Spinning - Oil on Canvas
166cm x 91cm
For the first time outside of London, this exhibition brings together key works in Elia’s catalogue that give a sense of the personal and professional journey the artist has undertaken. Key works such as ‘Maxine Spinning’ and ‘The Visit’ series will be on show. Curated by Deanne Tremlett, who has worked with Elia three times before, and in a new and exciting space for Dorset this show promises to both stun and stymie.
“I’m trying to avoid voyeurism by refusing to let you be a passive viewer; my subjects look you straight in the eye, make you engage. Theirs is an active gaze. It’s uncomfortable.”
Wendy Elia is a British painter of Anglo/Greek Cypriot descent who trained at St Martins School of Art. She has exhibited widely and been a finalist in a number of national and international competitions including at the National Portrait Gallery, Sovereign European Art Prize, Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Prize, and the Threadneedle Prize. Her work is held in public permanent collections across the UK, including at the RWA (Royal West of England Academy), University of Essex, Swindon Museum and Art Gallery, Falmouth Art Gallery, and Priseman Seabrook Collection: 21st Century British Painting and in private collections in the UK, Italy and South Africa. She was recently the recipient of a grant from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation and in 2019 was elected as an RWA Academician. Notable commissions include Arts Council funded projects such as a portrait for the cultural Olympiad (converted into life sized posters and displayed on billboards, bus shelters etc.) and ‘Shifting Subjects: Contemporary Women Telling the Self through the Visual Arts’ (Grimsby and Usher Gallery, Lincoln) exhibiting alongside Sarah Lucas, Miranda Whall and others. In addition to her many solo exhibitions, Elia has exhibited widely in numerous group shows, including a recent tour of China with the Contemporary British Painting collective and ‘Strange Worlds –The Vision of Angela Carter’ (RWA, Bristol). She has contributed to symposia in the UK and has been called upon to judge art competitions.
