Today we’d like to introduce you to Wendy Bevan
Hi Wendy, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
I first came to Los Angeles from London around 8 years ago and fell in love with the light. I knew i had to move here and promised myself if i got my Artist Visa i would move immediately. So i went back to the UK, applied and worked extremely hard on the application and it happened. I left everything behind in London, packed up my flat and came to the USA.
I grew up in a theatrical family; my father was an iconic Actor in the cult genre of Sci-Fi and Horror world, so I always had a fascination in the surreal; dreams and fantasy.
After attending Art School in Central London where I studied Photography; I began to develop a vision for
my own world through staging the Photographic image, with light and shadow that became the platform for many of my performances, musical influences and soundscapes.
During this time in London, soon after graduating I started working as an editorial Photographer for many international publications, namely Vogue, I-d, POP, LOVE, Harpers Bazaar, FT How To Spend It, Marie Claire Italia and for many years being represented by several top agents including Ridley Scott Associates (RSA) and collaborating with some of the top names in the creative editorial and commercial Photography world.
My love for the violin started when I first picked up the instrument at the age of seven. As i continued my journey with the instrument into adulthood, I found it resonated so closely with the voice and was intrinsically linked to the fluidity of human emotions. Similar to Photography, the violin was enabling me to express ineffable ideas through compositions, exploring spaces between the light and dark in sound. During these years in London working as a Photographer, I also continued to play the violin and sing in numerous musical projects, performing and creating immersive audio visual artworks, fusing my passion for colour, light, characters and theatricality.
In 2016 my debut album Rose and Thorn was released via the French label Kwaiden & K7, produced by Marc Collin (Nouvelle Vague) the album bought together dark pulsing electronic synths, minimalist post punk bass lines. During the creation of this project, I collaborated with the prestigious Balanescu Quartet. The album featured my song ‘Love From the Moon’ which became Number One upon its release in the European Alternative charts in 2016.
In 2018 I met Duran Duran’s Nick Rhodes who I then went on to collaborate with for the years to come. Throughout 2020 we created ASTRONOMIA a series of 4 instrumental, contemporary classical, soundtrack albums, with a total of 52 tracks.
Composing with electric violin, pedals, synths and vocals, the magical project launched in March 2021 and each of the four albums was released on the Solstices and Equinox’s throughout the year.
As a duo our creative collision of analogue synthesizers, violins, voices and orchestral arrangements was fuelled by a shared attraction to the Universe and ancient mythology, producing a truly unique collection of records. Each individual piece is a sonic painting, a tapestry of rich textures and haunting melodies forming soundscapes ideal for synch.
In 2022 I was then invited by NYC based, music supervisor Randall Poster to be part of the Bird Song project. My track The Calling is featured alongside other artists contributions including Nick Cave, John Cale, Laurie Anderson, Karen O and numerous others.
Using the blue print Nick and I created during the Astronomia series as collaborators, we have now finished writing our 5th album, which is my 2nd album as a solo artist entitled, Alone With The Unknown. This we hope to see released into the word in 2025.
I’m also collaborating on some more abstract experimental sound works with artist/ producer Mark van Hoen, which will be released in 2024 as part of an on going Digital Art/ Audio Visual project i am developing entitled Chromesthesia.
I’m performing here in LA often and earlier in 2024 i opened for Cruel World festival. My main focus is expanding my musical network and practice by developing sonic landscapes with performance on my Electric Violin, Pedals with Visuals.
I’d love to see my work synched with movies and start scoring some special projects at some time in the future. I’m currently signing a music publishing deal and I still take Photographs and work on regular commissions; my archive of imagery is homed with the incredible agency TRUNK Archive.
I’m currently based in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles although i travel often to Europe and the UK for work, but like to call this city my home. …more to come!
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Being an Artist is never easy, especially when you cross over genres and work with a multidisciplinary approach.
I work with Music, Performance and Photography and each one of those disciplines requires alot of knowledge and constant creativity to understand how each can be intertwined and a universal language that engages with your audience.
While creatively i’m always driven, and worked extremely hard throughout my career path to make things happen and, been fortunate enough to work with some amazing collaborators. The main struggle i have is funding work. I feel that there’s simply not enough funding out there for multidisciplinary artists and so often i have to spend 99% of my time working this out, jumping through hoops and balancing instead of being creative. Music especially is one of those art forms that i find more and more astonishing, people take for granted and while feel entitled to listen to but, the system fails to actually support the artists themselves so they can create more. Instead we are pushed to our limitations and as an artist who has been working for 20years or so now, i’m passed believing that struggling pathes the way to great art.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I’m a multi disciplinary artist working with Music, Performance and Photography.
My career as a Musician has led me to collaborate with some fantastic artists; my most recent collaboration being with Duran Duran’s Nick Rhodes over 5 albums. I’m a vocalist and a Violinist. Now my focus is playing Electric Violin with effects pedals and creating huge walls of sound, fused with projections and light in performance also working within in the digital art world to connect sound from my violin into imagery. I’d love to move into scoring movies too in the near future.
Within in the Photography world, i’m most known for my early works on Polaroid, and work as an Editorial Photographer across international Fashion publications such as Vogue, LOVE, Marie Claire, Bazaar to name. few. I still publish Photographic work in magazines but try ever more to push my world of image making into the experimental Audio/ Visual realm. As a Photographer my archive for image licensing is with TRUNK Archive.
The synergy and ineffable feeling between the light the dark and how that sounds is my genre.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
Always creative, constantly making things, singing, dancing, performing and dressing up. I liked to create my own world creatively as a kid and i continue to do that to this day.
Pricing:
- Open to commissions and collaborations across all genres i work with. Prices & day rate vary
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @wendybevanofficial and @wendy_bevan_photography
- Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/wendy-bevan
