Incollect Magazine - Issue 10

Incollect Magazine 83 M Fine Arts Galerie Artist: Wendy Westlake “I start my paintings by marking up the canvas with pencils, crayons, and splatters of paint,” says painter Wendy Westlake, who has a new show on view through February 15 at M Fine Arts Galerie in Boston. “I’m waging war with the plain starkness of that innocuous, untouched canvas, in a sense, aging it. My intention is that these first marks add character and interest to all that follows.” Westlake celebrates the process of painting in paintings, specifically the underpainting, which is the first step in the process of creating an image. It is why her works have depth and resonance, with every mark not only visible but meaningful, a push and pull of surface shapes and forms in harmonious colors that form an unstable whole. “Her innovative use of color, texture, and form,” is what we really love about her artwork, say Mitch Plotkin and Madison Maushart from M Fine Arts Galerie, who represent the artist in the Northeast. “I saw her work on Instagram, three years ago,” Plotkin says, “there was something about it that kept me looking and I knew then she was special.” Partly it’s her color palette, he says, and the way the work seems to reference different periods, and styles in modern art history (Surrealism, collage, abstraction) and at the same time remain fresh and new. “She is definitely influenced by Surrealist collage, which is why the images have sculptural qualities in my view,” Plotkin says, adding “The gallery does very well with her work. The paintings are beautiful but the scale and price point are also very approachable.” Music Surrounds Us, 2024. Acrylic, crayon and medium on raw canvas, 80 x 105 inches. Suitable for the Occasion, 2024. Crayon and acrylic on raw canvas, 48 x 48 inches.