Wendy Klemperer earned a bachelor’s in biochemistry at Harvard before moving to NYC to pursue art full time, earning a B.F.A. in sculpture at Pratt Institute in 1983. She has received many residency grants, including from the Skowhegan School, The MacDowell Colony, The Ucross Foundation, Sculpture Space in Utica, Denali National Park, and SIAS University in Xinzheng, China. Her nation wide exhibits include installations at Socrates Sculpture Park, Queens, NY, Bridgewater-Lustberg Gallery, NY, NY, DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park in Lincoln MA, and Pratt Institute Sculpture Park in Brooklyn, NY. Comprehensive solo shows at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, Boothbay in 2009, and Maine Audubon in Freeport in 2010 were organized by June LaCombe. In 2017 she had solo shows at Studio 10 Gallery in Brooklyn, and Long Island University in Brooklyn. She has permanent outdoor sculptures in public and private collections throughout the United States. She lives in Brooklyn, NY, and Nelson, NH.
The imagery that pervades her work reflects a lifelong fascination with animals. To make the large scale sculptures she searches scrap yards for industrial refuse ravaged by usage and demolition. Bent and twisted, such pieces contain energy and potential new life. Her welding process is a kind of three dimensional gesture drawing. A network of steel lines builds a skeletal form containing both presence and absence. Wendy investigate the body language of animals to express a feeling or state of being, with motion conveying emotion. Focusing on the animal realm seems no less important to her than on that of humans, to explore the continuity and relationship between all forms of life on earth.
