"The story of Wende's [art] does not lie in a single telling; it is a story of many voices echoing an extraordinary person." From Wende Davis' Obituary
Wende Davis was a dedicated artist
whose process was one of discovery and learning. Wende studied
anthropology at the University of British Columbia in the early 70s.
Later, as an artist, a large part of her discipline became a study of
humankind. She worked cyclically. Each series or group of works allowed
her to give attention to a particular concern. Each series responded to
events in her life, her travels, her community. The materials for each
body of work varied according to the subject, her private needs and the
place where the work would be seen.
Wende's practice was political. She understood politics as personal
and as discourse; her queries were found in content, materials and
form. Each body of work was not only conceived in terms of subject but
also organized in relation to conventions governed by art history. For
instance, Wende often painted and drew on brown paper refuting
traditions of the precious art object, accepting this humble support as a
non-traditional art material that opened a space for women's voices and
alternate concerns. It allowed her voluminous production, as well as a
statement about value in art. She studied at Emily Carr Institute of
Art and Design and tailored what she learned to her own ends. These
strategies were a part of a feminist art practice, and Wende had come of
age as an artist at the Feminist Studio Workshop in Los Angeles.
Wende understood the politics of communication and of context.
Distant Images: Chechnya was conceived in response to what she was
learning of the conflict in that area through media coverage. She did
drawings based on maps that were printed in newspapers. She wrote poems
and did drawings and collages in response to television reporting. When
the artwork was to go to Studio Blue, near Granville Island in
Vancouver, she framed some pieces ‘gallery style', printed an artist's
bookwork which could be sold as a catalogue, and hung large paper
pieces responding to the gallery's physical space while challenging the
white wall conventions. Later, when she took the Chechnya series to
Artropolis she reshaped it as a floor to ceiling, three panel hanging,
giving it the presence to hold it's place within the visual cacophony of
that huge exhibition in the CBC building basement.
Ceramic production was an early means of making for Wende. Perhaps
she was drawn to this material because of its prominence in domesticity
and in feminism. Wende embraced the essentialist ethos of the 60s and
70s. In that context, ceramics, being ‘of the earth' and central to
woman's traditional work (as cook), would have had a natural draw for
her. After all, she loved to cook, and she worked with Judy Chicago, a
feminist ceramic and installation artist, in 1975-78. The works Wende
produced were often usable vessels and small statues of strong women.
Wende was devoted to a far-reaching search for women's changing place in
the world.
The show Wende did for Liberty Bakery, a bakery/coffee shop in her
neighborhood, was a set of small paintings on boards that portrayed the
environment and activities around Main and 21st. Appropriately, this
show was almost entirely sold out, purchased inexpensively by the
visitors: local pastry eaters. Wende's interest in community was not
limited to her neighborhood. The Carnegie Portraits present, as a
whole, a larger image of a group of people who frequent the area of the
Downtown Eastside in Vancouver. Over an extended period of time, Wende
would make weekly visits to the old Carnegie Library, currently a
community centre, and work in the drawing studio where the locals would
volunteer to ‘sit' for the artists. The portraits Wende produced are
not only a grouping of broadly diverse faces; they also speak of
wide-ranging backgrounds, races, losses and successes. Similarly, her
series Portraits becomes not simply paintings of friends and
acquaintances. As a whole they give us an idea of her community.
Wende wanted recognition as an artist, especially from other
artists, but did not put her effort into financial gain. In her studio
showings she never priced her works, and if asked would not have a
predetermined price in mind. On the other hand, she spared no expense
in presenting the work. Every detail was considered, from the paper the
invitations were printed on to the typeface of her poetry books.
Near the end of her art career, which only ended with her death,
she showed her work annually in her studio as a part of The Drift on
Main Street, a community art tour. Although she sought exhibitions in a
larger gallery context, her work felt right in this beautiful space
tucked behind her perfect house, within her lovely garden.