At the age of eighteen, Wendy Fairclough left Whanganui for a ‘wander around’ Australia that resulted in her settling in Adelaide. In the early 1990s, she completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in printmaking and sculpture at the South Australian School of Art. She later returned to art school to study glass, graduating with an applied arts degree in 2000. Since then Fairclough has been hooked on the magic of glass and has gone on to establish an impressive practice that has seen her exhibiting in Australia and around the world.

Fairclough discovered that the medium of glass provided her practice with discipline, technical boundaries and physical challenges. The three-dimensionality of objects in a space, and in conversation with each other, has provided fertile ground for her work. Her exploration of casting glass has led to her also using materials such as aluminium and concrete, and more recently bronze, in her sculptural installations.
- Greg Donson, Curator and Public Programmes Manager, Sarjeant Gallery Te Whare o Rehua Whanganui