Wendy Fairclough

At the age of eighteen Wendy Fairclough left her hometown of Whanganui for a ‘wander around’ Australia and has since made it her home, settling in Adelaide. In the early 1990s she completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in printmaking and sculpture at the South Australian School of Art. Subsequently she attended a glass blowing workshop with Nick Mount which motivated a return to Art School to study glass and from which she graduated with an Applied Arts degree in 2000. Since then Fairclough has been hooked on the magic of glass and has gone on to establish an impressive track record of exhibiting in Australia and overseas, her work is held in many private and public collections, including the national art collections of Australia and New Zealand.

"Fairclough’s work is characterised by a distinctive visual language, instantly recognisable as the artist’s own, that at the same time allows her to articulate a diversity of ideas and concerns. Her understated aesthetic combines approaches derived from her background in painting, printmaking, sculpture and installation with a deep and abiding love of the materiality of glass. The basic building blocks of Fairclough’s work are common, domestic objects, transposed into glass by way of casting, blowing and cold-working. These objects form the basis of carefully arranged tableaux that blend a painter’s understanding of light, colour and composition with an acute sensitivity to the poetic possibilities of objects in space.” (Roy Ananda)

“In my most recent work I am drawn to objects and activities that are intimately familiar for most human beings in every culture or religion. The focus is on what we have in common regardless of external differences and extends to an interpretation of gestures and objects associated with the ingenuity and creativity of the human mind and hand in meeting basic human needs such as food, warmth and shelter”

Wendy’s Adelaide Hills, studio based practice comprises exhibition work, commissions and lecturing. She has exhibited throughout Asia, New Zealand, USA, Canada and Australia.

Wendy’s work is represented in private and public collections including the National Gallery of Australia, Australian Art Glass Collection, Australian National University Collection, Museum of Australian Democracy, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa and New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Artist website