BIO Wendy Given is a visual artist whose undergraduate BFA studies concentrated on painting, printmaking, photography, and sculpture at the Atlanta College of Art (ACA) in Atlanta, Georgia. She received her MFA from Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, California. Wendy is the Art Program Manager/Curator for the Port of Portland and Portland International Airport in Portland, Oregon and is a certified Wilderness First Responder (WFR). She has exhibited nationally and internationally and is represented by Whitespace Gallery in Atlanta, Georgia. Wendy lives and works in both Portland, Oregon, and in the South Puget Sound on Harstine Island, WA.] STATEMENT With a production of vivid, uncanny contemporary photography, drawing, sculpture, and installation, my practice stems from a profound interest guided by nature, history, folklore, myth, and magic—magic as a term meant to conjure the notion of the interconnectedness of all life forces. My work possesses a keen sensibility in observing, documenting, and seamlessly merging the natural with the otherworldly. I produce highly crafted images and objects that resonate in the dark, unstable ground between consciousness and collective memory and construct visual modes that reveal the ironies implicit in desiring a life where we can be ruled by awe and the unexplainable. Through my work I retain a deep, unmoving reverence for Nature and our Environment that is also reflective of contemporary culture’s processes of assimilation and myth-making. Most importantly, my visual craft conveys an intense yearning to honor and utilize our inherent animal awareness—to regain unspoken understanding, and to be conscientious of the fact that we are all, and always will be (as humans), integral to and dependent on the Natural World.