Brenna Wampler

Artist's website: http://brennawampler.wixsite.com/artbybrenna

Brenna Wampler is an artist based in her hometown of Cambridge City, Indiana. She attended Lincoln High School where she was gifted four years of art classes with instruction from one temperamental old man, and one grown woman whose wardrobe included a Batman dress and sneakers. After high school, she began attending Indiana University East where she will earn her bachelor’s degree of Fine Arts in the spring of 2020. Wampler’s work deals with various topics of the human experience but focuses on human relationships. Along with visual work, Wampler also finds solace in writing about her experiences, and often incorporates text into her pieces. Wampler has exhibited work at Indiana University East (Richmond, IN), K12 Gallery & TEJAS (Dayton, OH), and Richmond Art Museum (Richmond, IN).

Artist Statement

I create art that is focused on human relationships, and personal experiences and how those affect us. I work with traditional media utilizing various methods including painting, drawing, textile, writing, and animation. I am specifically interested in how we as humans view romantic, platonic, and familial relationships. I think people often prioritize romantic relationships over platonic ones and I am fascinated by that concept. I’m interested in how the media presents “desirable” relationships that often have many toxic traits, and how that encourages people to romanticize unhealthy relationships. Through my work, I also like to explore my personal ideas and biases towards love and relationships. A lot of my own opinions towards relationships were influenced by my parents’ divorce and the marriages/relationships of my aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, etc. Writing and drawing about these topics has been both a healing and growing process for me.

In my current body of work, I am continuing my “research” on the human experience by asking the simple question “What is Love?” I am attempting to answer the question through multiple methods including interviews with my friends and family, daily records of my own experiences with relationships, and creating video pieces based on these findings. This will create what I hope will be an immersive experience that people will have a desire to spend a lot of time with as they read, listen to, and watch my desperate desire to answer this fundamental, and yet elusive, question.