Wendy’s career began with New York’s fashion industry, working for Stephen Sprouse in the old Andy Warhol Factory. There she developed a taste for the offbeat and a love of both still and moving images. Today, her work crosses over storytelling forms: film, photography and video installation. Her passion for visual language is underpinned by its power to transcend boundaries and touch on the pulse of what it means to be human.
Having spent over a decade living in multicultural environments, including SE Asia and The Gulf, Wendy believes that there are infinite lenses through which to view the world. Every frame is an opportunity to peel back the layers of meaning in order to see things in a new way. Her directing approach is anchored in a certain stillness, observing performances, real or constructed, for authenticity. She commands camera placement, prioritizes details and leans into the shadows, believing what is not seen and heard is just as powerful as what is visible.
Wendy approaches every new project with a sense of playfulness. Whether unleashing her imagination when writing a screenplay or location shooting, her mantra is curiosity. She’ll do whatever it takes; bungee-jump, hang out the side of a helicopter, load camera equipment in a dug-out tree truth to cross a raging river, in order to capture the moment. One initiative that Wendy is proud is Syrian Children’s Storybook in which where she worked with refugee children to write/illustrate their own stories, culminating in the book ‘The Pistachio Tree.’
‘Yellow Bus’ is Wendy’s debut narrative feature film (writer/director), a story in five languages: English, Hindi, Arabic, Urdu and Tagalog and produced by Screen Project, coproduced by Sikhya Entertainment and OSN. The film premiered at Toronto International Film Festival and has since played at festivals around the world, winning 18 awards including, Johannesburg International Film Festival ‘Best Film,’ Los Angeles Independent Film Festival ‘Best Foreign Film,’ British International Film Festival ‘Best Feature Film,’ New York Women in Film and Television Award ‘Best Directing,’ Breckenridge Film Festival ‘Best Directing’ and Cinequest Film Festival ‘Spotlight Award.’
The ‘Yellow Bus’ screenplay has won numerous awards including New York International Screenplay Award, LA Film Fest Winner, L’Age D’Or International Arthouse Festival Winner, Crown Wood International Festival, Social World Festival Winner and Luis Bunuel Pigeon Award.
Her award-winning short films: ‘Leaving Gussie,’ ‘On Crystal,’ ‘Aurora,’ ‘Burning Money,’ have screened at venues worldwide including New York MoMA, Palm Springs International Film Festival, Montreal World Festival and St. Petersburg Film Festival.
Her photography work is always evolving and it includes straight-up street photography, fine arts photography, journalistic photos, conceptual photography, and encaustic prints. She combines natural light, strobe light and encaustic textures in my work. By fusing a photojournalist approach with artistic construction, she creates photographs that are simultaneously controlled and spontaneous.
Recent photography exhibits include Dallas Center for Photography, The Human Portrait Exhibition, “Suri Arc”, New York Nil Gallery, “ARTifice Traces”, Las Lasguna Gallery “SPILLED MILK+” series, CA, Incu Arts Gallery Alone/Together, “SPILLED MILK+” series, Honolulu, HA, Speculative Landscape – The Project Space, NYU Abu Dhabi –
Resignifications – “ARTifice Traces; Surma”, Palermo Italy. “Palimpsest” – The Drawing Room Gallery, Singapore, “Site-line – The Unobserved Observed” – Morris & King Gallery, NYC. Her video installation, ‘Human (de)Value, was exhibited at the Nomad Gallery, Dubai (2020).
Currently Wendy is developing the feature films ‘Yahoo Boy’ – a story of an American widow who falls in love with an online scammer and goes to Nigeria to meet him and ‘Shahana’ – a story of a couple living in Singapore who faced with having to return their adopted baby to the muslim birth mother, convert to Islam.
Wendy splits her time between New York City and The United Arab Emirates where she is an Arts Professor of Film and New Media at New York University Abu Dhabi. If you would like to contact Wendy and discuss a project please go to the contact page and send a message.
