WENDY JEAN HAYDEN

BORN 1959, Katanning

LIVES & WORKS Boorloo | Perth and Katanning

LANGUAGE

GROUP Noongar

Perth based artist Wendy Hayden was born in Katanning. Raised in a strong Noongar household, Wendy was encouraged by her father to be proud of her heritage and gather strength from it. Her mother is a member of the Stolen Generation, and it is from her mother’s stories that Wendy draws inspiration for her painting.

Her work One Big Nut is comprised of many quandong nuts, a traditional bush food. According to Wendy, “I designed the sculpture to emphasise the importance of how much our Aboriginal people rely on our yearly diet, produced from the skin. It is an open medicine for our people. The nuts are very, very hard. It’s likened to our people being resilient to the hard history we have been through and is stronger for it today.”