Wildlife/Animals nominee

In States of Grace, I seek serenity in ephemeral, organic forms, illuminating glimpses of beauty to silence the chaos. I capture the fleeting movement of light on form that is often overlooked, preserving that mystical moment that stills time for me. Photographing intuitively - what I feel, as much as what I see - and informed by a background in oil painting and art history, I portray a personal interpretation by layering the images with color and texture to balance the real and the imagined. The images are printed digitally with archival pigment ink on vellum. White gold leaf is applied on verso, creating a luminous surface and suffusing the treasured subjects with the spirituality and sanctity of the precious metals. Within the limited edition, the prints may differ in color or texture, and, as the effect of gilding inherently varies, each of the limited edition prints is unique.

Wendi Schneider is a visual artist illuminating vanishing beauty in our vulnerable environment. Rooted in the serenity she finds in the grace of organic forms and influenced by a background in painting and art history, she creates unique objects of reverence by capturing, layering and printing her images digitally, then applying white gold leaf on verso - to infuse the artist's hand and suffuse her subjects with the luminosity and spirituality of the precious metal. Schneider turned to photography in the 1980s to reference for paintings. Mesmerized by the alchemy of the darkroom, yet missing the sensuousness of oils, she layered oils on her prints. She moved to New York in 1988, photographing for book covers and Victoria Magazine, and to Denver in 1994, later sidelining her fine art practice while working in commissioned photography, art direction, and design. Returning to fine art photography in 2010, she soon began her ongoing series ‘States of Grace’. Exhibited and collected internationally, her photographs are held in permanent collections at New Orleans Museum of Art, Memphis Brooks Museum, Center for Creative Photography, and Auburn University Library. She is represented by A Gallery For Fine Photography, New Orleans and Catherine Couturier Gallery, Houston.