Born in 1970 in Cleveland, Ohio, of African American and Ashkenazi decent, and eventually diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, artist Wendy Means paints images with multidimensional meaning. Although she received scholarships to both The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), she was unable to complete her degree in Fine Art. She would later be declared permanently disabiled at 27. After spinal surgery and a 25+ year hiatus from art, she returned to it, first by painting in acrylics and recently adding oil painting. As an emerging outsider artist she has tackled the genre of neo surrealism (which she calls “metarealism”) which permits Wendy to paint in between realities, and within unseen elements conveying deeper messages than language ever could. Currently residing in Jacksonville, Florida, Wendy continues to vastly improve her technique of bringing invisible realities to canvas.