About Wendy
Rolt paints as a response to and exploration of her experiences through years of living in often unusual and diverse situations and communities.
Alongside her art, she has been deeply immersed in cultures and ways of life that differ greatly from the one she was brought up in. Wendy has pursued creative ways of doing life in community, including living in Hong Kong alongside Chinese drug addicts for a number of years and later founding a charity and community for local women in East London from difficult and broken backgrounds.
Wendy is untiring with her practice, be it drawing, painting or mixed media. This commitment to her work has now become her core focus, although she continues to be immersed in the lives of the women she has worked with for many years.
She is always pushing at thresholds, exploring new territory, be it the city she lives in, the landscape beyond or the imagination within. As the subjects of her work change over the years, she continues to grapple with the deeper and hidden spirit of everything she paints and to explore the sense of the idea beyond the literal. Painting needs to be present to it’s time, an artist has to paint with their eyes open. For Wendy the use of colour is a lens.
Rolt is interested in relationship. What is held between. What is unsaid. What is perceived even if not understood. How a person presents themselves. How they see themselves, compared with the reality of how they are seen. Where and in what spaces they find a sense of rest and home – and how the body holds all of these dimensions – is of great interest in her recent work. The embodiment and expression of emotion – and how this relates and speaks to both self-perception and the beholder’s perspective – are tensions she seeks to capture.
These subjects and aspects must be seen and grappled with. In her work, she seeks to capture the eye and to hold it. Be it through an experience of discomfort or joy, Rolt works to build relationship between herself, her subject and the viewer, to draw out more than is realized.
About Wendy
Rolt paints as a response to and exploration of her experiences through years of living in often unusual and diverse situations and communities.
Alongside her art, she has been deeply immersed in cultures and ways of life that differ greatly from the one she was brought up in. Wendy has pursued creative ways of doing life in community, including living in Hong Kong alongside Chinese drug addicts for a number of years and later founding a charity and community for local women in East London from difficult and broken backgrounds.
The artist is untiring with her practice, be it drawing, painting or mixed media. This commitment to her work has now become her core focus, although she continues to be immersed in the lives of the women she has worked with for many years.
She is always pushing at thresholds, exploring new territory, be it the city she lives in, the landscape beyond or the imagination within. As the subjects of her work change over the years, she continues to grapple with the deeper and hidden spirit of everything she paints and to explore the sense of the idea beyond the literal. Painting needs to be present to it’s time, an artist has to paint with their eyes open. For Wendy the use of colour is a lens.
Rolt is interested in relationship. What is held between. What is unsaid. What is perceived even if not understood. How a person presents themselves. How they see themselves, compared with the reality of how they are seen. Where and in what spaces they find a sense of rest and home – and how the body holds all of these dimensions – is of great interest in her recent work. The embodiment and expression of emotion – and how this relates and speaks to both self-perception and the beholder’s perspective – are tensions she seeks to capture.
These subjects and aspects must be seen and grappled with. In her work, she seeks to capture the eye and to hold it. Be it through an experience of discomfort or joy, Rolt works to build relationship between herself, her subject and the viewer, to draw out more than is realized.