Encaustic & Cold Wax Paintings
ENCAUSTIC PAINTINGS
In this series of encaustic and cold wax oil paintings, I use elements from the natural world such as wax from the bee, resin from the tree, pigments from earth’s minerals and the element of fire. These natural components all come together to create an alchemical process of transformation, turning the colorless, solid, material of bees wax into a liquid that flows across a substrate in a swirling dance. Within this dance there is an undeniable sense of both control and surrender with the artist and the medium alternately taking the lead.
Encaustic painting is a perfect medium to convey the idea of transformation and rebirth that is a major part of my creative work. The process of encaustic literally goes through an alchemical change starting out as solid colorless material, then changing into a molten liquid and finally transforming itself into a solid, hard, archival material of many different hues through the addition of special pigments. In this work, it is often the "process" more than the "product" that sings of transformation. The artworks that result are abstract forms with surfaces that are inspired by organic and cosmic elements and earth images that are viewed from an aerial perspective.
The surfaces of my encaustic paintings are often carved, etched, and/or embedded with other objects from nature such as sand, glass, bark, twigs, stones, handmade papers, silk, wool and more. The subtle scent of molten bees wax fills the air, and the flame of the torch gently warms the studio. The experience is always a very sensory and visceral one.
The translucent and luminous layers of wax create an effect that is rich and varied allowing colors laid down previously to shine through. The intriguing effects of layering mirror the many layers of life, both in human existence and within nature. Layers tell countless stories of life.
COLD WAX & OIL PAINTINGS:
An additional medium that I work in is cold wax mixed with traditional oils paints. Cold wax painting is the cousin to encaustic painting, as it also combines bees wax and pigments. While encaustic painting uses molten (melted) wax, cold wax is not heated or melted. It is a paste-like, translucent medium that is mixed with oil pigments. The result, like encaustic, also yields a luminous, semi-transparent, lustrous result. These lustrous works explore the same concepts as all of my art work: the processes of transformation and renewal within nature and human existence, the hidden aspects of damaged, and the beauty of impermanence and imperfection. Again, as in much of my work, I am intrigued by texture and tactile qualities that I observe in the natural word, and I also emphasize these qualities in my cold wax paintings.
