Wendt is an architect by training, and his work has a serious architectural philosophy: space—a kind of nothingness—can be achieved by enclosure. The positive elements of four walls and a roof create an experience of solid emptiness, the oxymoron achieved in Wendt's deeply introspective drawings. But the artist is philosophical in others ways, too. He is influenced by a number of western philosophers, including Martin Heidegger. "In principle," Heidegger remarks, "nothingness remains inaccessible to science." That position agrees with a statement made by Thomas Crow: "the icon does not passively submit to the analytical dissection of the humanist interpreter." Wendt appreciates the role of the artist as the creator and interpreter of feeling—of cool passion.

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