Wendy Helliwell

Wendy grew up in the 80’s surrounded by the rise of visual media and her work today is still very much influenced by this predominately Fashion, Pop Culture and Advertising, with one of her favourite mediums being the Vogue magazine itself.

Primarily self-taught, Wendy advanced her passion studying courses at Edinburgh College of Art. Her spirit for fashion, style and identity, yet remaining sustainable in her approach sees her mixing traditional materials with unconventional consumer related glossy magazines, make-up, nail-polish, receipts, tags, old clothing and other throw-away effects in her fusion of painting and collage based compositions.

Always recycling where possible Wendy celebrates fashion, culture and colour with her contemporary mixed media artworks. She aims to represent the modern consumer landscape with a combination of behaviours and identities by disassembling and reconstructing the cultural symbols, motifs and paradigms of the past and present. This results in colourful, tactile, eye-catching works often depicting an unplanned narrative and frequently presenting themselves in 3D form for maximum impact.

A natural progression sees Wendy taking her work onto recycled fashion items themselves using clothing as the canvas but this time not just for visual pleasure but as an expressive apparel.