Bio
Wendel Wirth (b. 1966) is a contemporary fine art photographer interested in the space between minimalist art and photography. Whether it’s her photographs of large swaths of land, small town scenes, fading structures or even vinyl albums, one may find themselves more deeply engaged with form and texture. Inspired by the paintings of Georgia O’Keeffe, her work finds its home somewhere between abstraction and realism ultimately pushing the viewers attention beyond the subject and celebrating the most essential and elemental aspects of the photograph.
Wirth is an Idaho Commission on the Arts and National Endowment for the Arts Fellow. All About Photo named Wirth one of the Best Modern Photographers of December 2020 for her project ‘This is the Place’. She has received recognition from the Boise Art Museum, Felix Schoeller Photo Awards, and the London International Creative Competition among others. Wirth received her Masters of Fine Art from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, graduating Magna Cum Laude and her Bachelor of Fine Art from Denison University.
For 18 years, prior to pursuing her MFA, Wirth worked as a commercial photographer, art director and product designer for ‘a tail we could wag’, a company she founded in 1989. She has studied photography at Parson’s School of Design, Maine Photographic Workshops (now Maine Media) and with the Friends of Photography. She has had the fortune of studying under Ruth Bernhard, Ralph Gibson and Eikoh Hosoe.
Wirth is a newly appointed trustee of the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe.
Originally from New York City and Chicago, she lives in the mountains of Ketchum (better known as Sun Valley), Idaho with her husband, daughter, and two well-loved dogs.