Biography : A Brief History

Wendy Farrow

Wendy Farrow was born in England in 1962. Her family emigrated to Canada in 1966. She grew up surrounded by theatre and classical ballet. This shaped her perception of the world and instilled in her a life long love of dance.

Wendy has been exploring the possibilities in photography and image-making of all forms for over 40 years. As a child she was intrigued by her father's darkroom and so she learned to print and to develop film at the age of 9. The desire to create with the camera took hold. At age 12 she was working with semi-precious stones and running a small jewellery-making business. In her mid teens she was learning to paint in oils and continuing with her photography studies. She had great success in school in academic subjects, particularly mathematics, but her heart led her into the arts upon graduation.

In 1992 at the age of 30, Wendy moved to Vancouver and worked in various aspects of the professional photography industry. Three years later the digital revolution began and luckily the Vancouver Film School was the best place to acquire an education in all things digital, from animation to programming to video and music production. She graduated with an Award of Excellence, and was a teacher and curator at the school before moving into web development.

For 6 years she worked as a freelance programmer and developer, and then at age 40 decided it was time to focus on her creative passions. She moved to Paris in 2002 to gather images and inspiration. It was there, after visiting the Rodin Museum, that she began experimenting with sculpture. This lead down a path of creating mixed-media photo-based images incorporating her sculptures and her paintings.

Wendy's full-time art career began in Toronto in 2004. By 2007, Paris was tugging at her heart again and she spent another year there absorbing the art and architecture and adding to her library.

In 2008 she returned to Canada for personal and health reasons, taking a few years to recover but all the while continuing with her art. It was due to the illness that she returned to ballet, to strengthen her muscles and build physical confidence, and to finally, at age 50, achieve a life-long goal of dancing en pointe.

Ten years on, she was ready to return to Europe. She now lives and works in London, UK.

Almost 50 years on from her first days in the darkroom, Wendy is still pursuing all of her early passions and continually experimenting with ways of bringing them together.

Her work has won several international awards including Prix de la Photographie Paris and The International Photography Awards (The Lucies). Her images hang in private collections around the world.