Wendy Fernstrum

When does a beginning begin and an ending end? At what point does an ending become a beginning? My work explores this in-between space where identity is constantly shifting and all that seemed certain loses form.

Intellectually we like buckets, divisions, distinctions – yet the universe reveals our dualities as folly. For many of us, life and death seem to be separate dualities. Deeper inquiry reveals the separation of life and death as a human construct. Each of us is living and dying simultaneously; 300 million cells die every minute in our bodies even as we generate 200 billion new cells each day. We start dying the minute we are born.

Where does each of us begin and end? Are the drops of water in the ocean distinct? In my work I explore individuality within a united oneness, and the continuum of beginnings and endings. Although my diptychs present two distinct images – presence and absence, beginning and end – they transcend “either/or” to convey “and/both.”

The line that appears in much of my work represents the thread that connects us all and the unique strand that we are or the distinct mark we make in the world.

"One Is the Holiest Number (#2)", which was completed in 2015, is a meditation on the paradox of one: how each of us as an individual is distinctly one, yet simultaneously part of a unified whole, as one. Fernstrum has investigated this theme for several years, creating work that explores the "in-between space" where identity is constantly shifting and certainties lose form.

You can find out more about Wendy and see more of her work on her website fernwerks.com