Artist Information

Artist Statement (brief)

My paintings focus on the freedom to choose in the midst of suffering or stuckness, tapping into that place within where perception of light, sound and consciousness meet. Each work begins in mediation and gratitude asking for the highest good. I usually paint from a place of stagnation, worry, doubt or fear—seeking to shift and transform stagnation into lightness of being. Words of intention are written on the substrate that may or may not show through the completed painting. I am guided by a sense of playfulness and spontaneity rather than planning. My task it mastery with my ego, to lovingly support it in moving aside, so that I can listen. Rather than see, I hear direction. Sometimes the message is mundane, other times I become aware of universal truths and laws and struggle to translate them into form through color, movement and texture. My focus is to enjoy the process off creation so that I may offer this experience of upliftment to observers in a shared recognition of something remembered deep within the soul where innocence, joy and humor originate.

(Full statement and biography are posted below after images.)

CURRENT working SERIES: EMERGENCE

FROM THE SERIEs: protection

From the serieS TWENTY DRAWINGS

ARTIST STATEMENT (FULL)

My paintings are portals and prayers — a spiritual anatomy of the universe where cells mirror stars, circles open into galaxies, and radiant color reveals the dance between dark and light. Each piece is a meditation on the divine within us, an invitation to awaken and remember who we truly are in our essence: LOVE.

My work explores the freedom to clear myself of negative unconscious patterns and move them into healing and release. I create from a state of listening rather than directing, where the brush, color, and movement are guided by spirit. The consistent struggle is obtaining the cooperation of my lower self so that it steps aside. The process becomes both a healing and a celebration: clearing incompletions in my consciousness, transforming trauma, healing memories and misbeliefs about myself and others, moving into upliftment and peace.

Themes of liberation, inner awakening, and identification with the greater Self are central to my work. Drawing from cosmology and metaphysical principles — as above, so below — I see painting as a dialogue between the human and divine: the microcosm of the self and the macrocosm of all existence. Symbols emerge organically — squares as boxed beliefs, suns as movement toward awakening, doors and horseshoes as portals of birth and death, birds as emblems of stuckness or liberation. Vivid color functions as an expression of love itself, echoing the luminous hues captured by telescopes revealing our endless universes, gold and silver accents a reminder of the alchemy of healing.

I work primarily in acrylic, sometimes with pastels, watercolor, and alcohol inks. Each painting begins with meditation and an intention. I write words on the substrate to communicate directionality, later covering them in layers of paint so their energy remains embedded. I converse with my painting, listening inwardly for its guidance asking what else it needs—the next color, tool, or gesture. Completion comes when both the painting and I experience peace and stillness.

I was raised in my mother’s art studio, visiting museums filled with conversations and deconstructions of Pollock, Nevelson, Kandinsky, Klee, Warhol, Hundertwasser, and Rivera. Studies of printmaking, drawing and painting at Cranbrook deepened my understanding of composition, color, and the importance of intuition. My mystical aesthetic is inspired by Khalil Gibran’s ethereal figures, William Blake’s gruesome and sublime contrary states, and the Pre-Raphaelite, Evelyn De Morgan. I am also influenced by the Transcendentalists, Hilma af Klint, and Agnes Pelton, as well as Klee, O’Keeffe, Krasner, and especially Hundertwasser.

My audience consists of seekers — those who view art as a mirror for self-awareness and images of the unseen. Viewers may come from meditative, healing, or philosophical backgrounds and are drawn to art as an experience of consciousness rather than representation. I intend my paintings to serve as visual prayers that opens both painter and observer into higher dimensions.

In essence, my practice is an act of surrender and trust — allowing color, movement, and spirit to reveal what words cannot. Each painting becomes both an offering and an arrival, a moment of remembrance that freedom and love is our essential nature and that in their contrasting states, both negative and positive polarities are gifts, acting as a battery for movement and growth.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Wendy Stretten is an emerging Los Angeles–based spiritualist painter whose abstract work explores consciousness, color, and soul transcendence. Her paintings are a playful prayer of acrylic, ink and pastel on canvas and paper. Raised in a community of artists in the Midwest, she grew up hanging exhibitions, absorbing conversations on technique, and learning to see through the eyes of makers. Childhood visits to major and minor modern art museums dissolved beliefs that art must take itself seriously to move its audience, allowing Stretten to trust her creative process. The vibrancy of Michigan clouds and sunlight on lakes remain central to her work’s bright palette and sense of movement. Trained in printmaking, drawing, and painting at Cranbrook, Stretten has a decades long independent practice. She divides her time between Los Angeles and Northern Michigan, and paints as a conversation in healing, beauty, and the humor of spirit. Stretten is currently working on a series called Emergence about perceived safety after surviving the Palisades mega fire and displacement, almost losing her cabin in a freak cataclysmic ice storm in Michigan, and a medical diagnosis (now clear) within the first seven weeks of 2025.