Wendy Tremayne

“The paintings feels personal, and encoded, 

like Nirvana lyrics - 

you don’t quite know what is going on, 

but somehow you get it.” 

- Luke Delalio 

 

Though primarily a conceptual artist I began painting in oil in 2017.  I learned by painting portraits, mostly of friends. This evolved into figurative works that are self-referential and at times contain imaginary characters. My conceptual work focuses on the realization that we’re the first generations alive to live in a world that’s entirely for sale. I explore the commodification of culture through art. 

Living in New York City I manipulated the news media and engaged volunteers to form a viral, conceptual, artistic medium. I designed and produced a number of on the street performances that were staged for media capture. Before leaving the city I created a model for textile repurposing called Swap-O-Rama-Rama and expanded this project to 130 cities world wide through the use of a Creative Commons license. 

In 2006 I moved to New Mexico to explore A decommodified life hands-on. On a raw acre that I purchased I spent over ten years learning to make what I need to live: food, shelter, power, fuel, medicine and domestic goods. I kept the blog Holy Scrap to document this project (2006 to 2014) and authored a memoir to share what I had learned titled The Good Life Lab: Radical Experiments in Hands-On Living (Storey 2013) which won the Nautilus Book Award for Lifestyle and Sustainability. Become a Patron!