Biography
REPATRIATING TO CANADA (2010): Repatriating recently to Canada, Bending continues with a full schedule of international shows in Tokyo, Istanbul, New York City, Beijing, Shanghai and the Cayman Islands.
GRAND CAYMAN (2000-2010): When the opportunity to live in a tropical paradise presented itself Bending was excited to take on the challenges of a new environment.
Teaching: As well as teaching at the University College of the Cayman Islands and the National Gallery of the Cayman Islands, she founded art classes at the prisons and developed classes for troubled teens. Influenced by the tropical surroundings and troubled lives of her students, her abstracted works became more representational.
Publicity: A prolific artist, Bending has been interviewed many times over the years on Cayman 27 national television about her numerous exhibitions and projects. One interview that aired on Cayman Airways flights to New York City can be seen on YouTube (3:15 min.).
A variety of articles were written in the Cayman Islands’ national newspaper and in US arts magazines. In Gallery & Studio magazine Ed McCormack wrote:
“The paintings of April Bending evoke a private realm of intriguing allusions. They seem fraught with subtle meanings as layered as the sumptuous impasto she employs to bring them into being”.
Awards:
| 2011 | Ontario Arts Council grant. Canada. |
| 2011 | Premier’s Award for Excellence in the Arts nominee. Ontario, Canada |
| 2008 | Banner Award for National Heroes Day in Grand Cayman. |
| 2007 | Her Painting “Sunset on an Era” won the Book Cover Award for New Art International. |
| 2004 | Eight pieces were chosen for the set of Orlando Bloom’s movie “Haven”. |
FIRST SOLO SHOW - TOKYO, JAPAN (1990): Bending’s abstract landscapes, with their subtle layers of texture, appealed to the Japanese sensibility.
VICTORIA, BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA (1980): Bending moved to Victoria, B.C.. There she served on the Board of Directors for the Vancouver Island Illustrators' Society and The Community Arts Council of Victoria, chairing the Awards and Grants Committee for the latter. She served on juries for both groups. Her work continued to explore abstract expression.
BACHELOR OF FINE ARTS DEGREE: Born in Vancouver, Canada, Bending earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the University of Alberta, on the Canadian prairies. The curriculum emphasized many traditional, classical art forms with emphasis on realism. When abstraction was encouraged she developed what would be a life long passion for texturing paint.