Wendy Sharpe

Wendy Sharpe (born 24 February 1960 in Sydney) is an Australian artist who lives and works in Sydney and Paris.

Wendy Sharpe was born in 1960 in Sydney, Australia.

She is the only child of British parents; her father is the writer and historian Alan Sharpe.

She spent her early years in the Northern Beaches in Sydney, and from 1978 and 1979 she studied at Seaforth Technical College.

Sharpe has exhibited work regularly since the mid 1980s throughout Australia; in commercial galleries, state museums, regional galleries and art spaces.

She has also had solo exhibitions in the UK, France, China, Germany.

In total she has had over 70 solo exhibitions nationally and internationally,

She received a Graduate Diploma of Professional Art from the City Art Institute in Sydney in 1984, and a master's degree from the College of Fine Arts, University of New South Wales in 1995.

She taught part-time at art schools for many years; including a position at the National Art School, Sydney.

Sharpe works in a large warehouse studio in inner Sydney, and in an apartment/artist studio in Montmartre, Paris, which she owns with her partner, artist Bernard Ollis.

Sharpe works in oil paint creating large scale portrait and figurative works that depict real people as well as imagined elements.

She also creates commissioned murals.

Chris Saines, Director of Queensland Art Gallery of Modern Art said Sharpe's work explores a ''“...constant curiosity about the world, the outer limits of the human imagination, and the part played by art history in nourishing them both.

She is, first and foremost, an extraordinarily accomplished painter who makes it all look so easy, when it never is.”''

Saines awarded her the Prestigious Gold Award in 2022.

The City of Sydney council commissioned Sharpe in 1998 to paint an Olympic pool sized mural on the life of Australian swimmer, actress and vaudeville performer, Annette Kellerman.

It is a series of eight paintings hung suspended along one side of the pool, permanently displayed in the Cook + Phillip Aquatic Centre, Sydney.

She has held over 70 solo exhibitions nationally and internationally, been awarded many national awards and artist residencies for her work, and was an official Australian War Artist to East Timor in 1999–2000.

In 1999, Sharpe was appointed official war artist during the Australian military role in East Timor, commissioned by the Australian War Memorial, Canberra.

She was the first female artist to be appointed in this role since World War II.

As on the Australian War Memorial (AWM) website:

“''Sharpe commenced duty in Darwin, where she attended briefing sessions and recorded the everyday activities of life in the barracks.

On 12 December, she departed for East Timor on HMAS 'Jervis Bay'.

Attached to the Army History Unit, she was assigned a military escort and wore a non-combatant uniform with the insignia "Australian Official Artist".

Sharpe spent three weeks sketching the local people and Australian peacekeepers, before returning to Sydney to complete major works based on her observations.''”

After returning from East Timor, Sharpe's paintings and drawings made on duty were added to the AWM's collection.

Sharpe was commissioned by Arts Centre Melbourne in 2008–2009 to make a series of drawings to commemorate Stravinsky’s ‘Firebird and Petruska’, with choreographer Graeme Murphy.

A major retrospective of her work, ’The Imagined Life’ was held at S. H. Ervin Gallery, The National Trust, Sydney, in 2011.

Though based in Sydney, Sharpe spends part of every year in an artist studio/apartment in Paris.

She has painted portraits of many well-known figures in the Australian arts industry, including Ash Flanders (finalist in the Archibald Prize, 2014), Venus Vamp (finalist in the Archibald prize, 2013), Magda Szubanski (finalist in the Archibald prize, 2020), Elena Kats – Chernin (now in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, 2017).

Wendy Sharpe has created a number of temporary murals and major wall paintings in museums and galleries, such as; Maitland Regional Gallery, Mosman Art Gallery, Lake Macquarie Museum of Art and Culture and The Yellow House, Potts Point.

In 2020, Sharpe was commissioned by the Inner West Council’s Perfect Match program, for their 100th mural.

Titled ‘Women’s Empowerment Mural’, it is on the corner of Church and Federation Street, Newtown, painted on the wall surrounding the home of Ewan Samway and his partner Matt Vagulans.

In 2021, she painted a forty-metre ephemeral mural, ‘Vu iz dos gesele?/Where is the little street?’, at Sydney Jewish Museum.

The mural depicted her recent family research trip to Ukraine.

It included a portrait of her grandmother and poetic imagery about time passing.

Government imposed COVID-19 restrictions at the time meant that the mural was never to open to the public.

A documentary on the mural ‘Site Unseen’ was later shown on ABC TV’s Compass program.

Sharpe has created works through residencies with Circus Oz, Sydney Dance Company and Opera Australia and drawn burlesque performers and drag queens from the audience view and backstage.

She has also drawn live on stage at various art spaces.