Artist Bio
Working out of her studio at Manufacturers Village in East Orange, New Jersey, Wendy Bellermann is a painter whose work spans three primary areas: high contrast black and white acrylic portraits of blues and rock musicians, colorful acrylics of farm animals and, most recently, paintings made from hand-collected and prepared ochres. Her art is inspired both by the music that fills her studio, and the timeless themes connecting modern humans to the cave painters of the Magdalenian era. View the Galleries to see Wendy’s work, or see her at outdoor shows throughout Northern NJ
Born on Long Island, New York, Wendy Bellermann has always surrounded herself with animals and art. Living in the woods at the edge of the sea, she spent most of her childhood rambling with her dogs, horse, pony and donkey through the forest, searching for natural beauty and creating structures from the stones, leaves, sticks, and earth she encountered.
She drew compulsively, trying to capture the beauty and mystery of the animals she encountered. Much of her time she felt more comfortable communicating with animals than people, which led to her creating portraits of the creatures around her. The chickens, oxen, horses and other creatures in her art engage the viewer with enormous character and an unshakeable sense of self-respect.
Bellermann also grew up with the mythology of her many-times-great uncle, Ferdinand Bellermann, a well-known German painter and naturalist of the 19th Century. He specialized in landscapes and portraits from Venezuela. She hopes that she, too, will capture the spirit and beauty of the world around her as her ancestor did.
Later in life Bellermann became part of the folk and blues scene in Maine. Her studio is never without music, primarily early blues musicians such as Son House and Robert Johnson. In painting these musicians, Bellermann utilizes a very high contrast style that contrasts starkly with the more realistic representations and bright colors of her animal work. The blues portraits break the human face into planes, shapes, absences and forms that strive to connect with the inner joy and struggle that so many of these artists endured.
Bellermann has taken classes at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey and the Parsons School of Design but has been primarily self-taught. She looks for the dignity and character within animals, and the patterns and shapes within humans. She often feels that she herself does not choose the topics and feelings that are revealed in her paintings, nor the character that they express, but rather allows them to bring themselves to light. She has exhibited throughout New Jersey and the Hudson Valley, including Emerge Art Gallery in Saugerties, New York, Heaven Art Gallery in Asbury Park, NJ, and the Sussex County Arts and Heritage Council in Newton, NJ.
“Whistlejacket” was created using pigments created from ochres that Bellermann collected from seaside cliffs. It is based on George Stubbs’s famous painting of the same name, as both an homage to him, a little joke, and a link between millenia.