Wendy Murphy

Born in Kent in 1956, in her late 20’s Wendy had a complete career change from working as a typesetter in London. She studied Graphic Design for two years at Canterbury College of Art, then went on to Brighton Art College where she graduated with a BA(Hons)degree in Illustration in 1990. In the same year she moved to Gwynedd, Wales, where she works as a professional painter and part-time lecturer in Fine Art and life drawing at Coleg Meirion-Dwyfor.

She has won several prestigious awards for her painting – including having been twice first prize British National winner in the John Laing landscape painting competition and twice first prize winner in the Welsh Open, MOMA Wales art competition. She has been runner-up in the Sunday Times watercolour competition and in 2004 she won first prize in ‘The Spirit of Llyn’ art competition and has appeared on television in a programme featuring the National Eisteddfod of Wales. She exhibits her work throughout the UK including London and Cardiff.

She says of her work:

It is ironic that I live in such a spectacularly beautiful place because it’s not the ‘grand view’ that I am interested in painting but rather the everyday landscapes and people that I know. An old cottage or a messy corner in a garden are more appealing than a view which is ‘already done’, each painting becoming a piece of theatre, a subjective dramatization of the familiar.

The painting process I find to be both cathartic and exciting. I encourage serendipity by working quickly and allowing the paint a certain amount of freedom – before I inevitably rein it back in again.