Wendy Botto – portfolio

Contact the artist

https://www.artweeks.org/p/wendy-botto
07530 328877
wendybotto7(at)gmail.com

Virtual tour

Exhibition catalogue: https://pci.jotform.com/form/260782673059365
Exhibition catalogue PDF

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Exhibition information

Hi, so last year my exhibition was titled ‘Potty about Pots’, based on my previous passion with painting old teapots and jugs, but this year my exhibition title is ‘Silly about seats’. I started with a subject based on the Van Gogh’s chair and pipe but substituted the pipe for modern vapes sitting on a chair. I enjoyed the painting the shapes and moved on to painting and producing reed pen & ink canvases using a rattan stool as a subject. The monotone reed pen removes control and makes me look for patterns and textures which provide refreshing movement in my work. This I tried to echo in my paintings, using Oil and acrylics I have become more experimental in my application of paint with lots of multicoured primed backgrouds, then applying the oil paintover this using a pallette knife and scratching  & scraping it around.

The painting of my dads old carpentry stool, brought back memories as I was painting it. Obviously it used as a testle for sawing in his carpentry years, but it is also sentimental because in the sixties as a children my sister and I used to sit on these in the back of my dads mini van. We had no seatbelts so leant against the sides, feeling every bump in the road but it was great fun. I kept the stool and painted it mauve for my daughters bedroom. 

Recently I showed this to my dad and he recalled adding the top layer to it when he used it after removing from the mini, this was when it gained all its cuts and marks during his carpentry days. It isn’t clear who made it as he can’t recall it, but my mum suddenly said its a cracket stool! Apparently a Northern term for conversation or natter, and made by miners to sit on during breaks or during work to rest their heads on. They were a very cheap way to create something to sit on. Also used in houses as cheap furniture or a fireside stool. It could be that my grandad made it as he was from Hartlepool and worked as a carpenter in the ship-building industry. My dad recalls as a child sitting on one eating his dinner, as they weren’t allowed in the lounge. This was years after my grandad had moved to Didcot. Having discovered this recently it has become even more of a family keepsake and I intend to do a series based on it.

I have always been drawn to old chairs in charity shops, and more recenly have been looking at the furniture as I wander around the Ashmolean. Lots of the claw feet and interesting legs are fun to paint, similar to the enjoyment I had painting the pots and their feet!

I prefer painting these items from life but did a few from photos when looking up the history of stools. Their funny little legs and feet remind me of living creatures that could waddle away sideways! The more worn and battered the better, wondering who has sat on them and in what environment. Maybe by the end of artweeks I will have moved onto larger chairs.

Alongside painting this year I have been experimenting with kitchen lithography and mono printing. Not knowing how the final result will look when printed has provided me with another frsh approach and different ways of mark-making which I am trying to replicate in my paintings.

I will also include some of last years pot paintings and scenes of Italy and Oxford. 

Artist information

I have been painting on and off since my Fine Art Degree. I currently juggle painting with my job as a Dog Agility trainer. I have always enjoyed drawing as much as painting and continue to go to life drawing regularly too. 

I will be running a reed pen & ink workshop at Braziers Park, please see their website for details.