Opening with First Friday on June 3, 2011, a collection of my recent encaustic paintings will hang in the Louise Gallery at the Mulberry Art Studios, 21 North Mulberry Street in Lancaster, PA. There will be an artist reception Friday, June 3 from 5 to 8 p.m. and Sunday, June 5 from 1 to 4 p.m.. I hope you will be able to attend a reception. If not, the usual business hours of Mulberry Art Studios are Monday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.. The show, MILIEUX, will hang from June 3 through the 30th.
My discovery of encaustic painting was fortuitous. It is the perfect medium to marry a craving to make sculptural marks with an exploration of the nature of color pigments - opaque or translucent or somewhere in between. Encaustic is an ancient medium known for its longevity and brilliance, surviving from ancient Egypt and Rome. I manufacture my paint from beeswax, tree resin and museum quality pigments from Robert Gamblin, then apply it molten, flowing like water, onto cradled hardwood panels. As it cools the paint solidifies and becomes sculptural, accepting carving and tool marks. The heating, cooling and carving process is repeated as many times as the work demands. The completed painting becomes a cool solid shell bonded to a wood panel, and is buffed to a finish ranging from a soft sheen to a high gloss. The sensual painting experience lives on in the work with the sweet and evocative scent of beeswax.
I pray you will find time to wander and wonder through MILIEUX, a collection of 25 paintings created over the past year as I have explored my surroundings and allowed myself to be changed by what I have seen and heard and felt. The paintings I present in MILIEUX are a record of this year in my life and meant to share my emotional experience of environment with the viewer. Through this collection I attempt to celebrate the places traveled in our daily lives. I pray to find and record the beauty that lies therein and, in that beauty, extend inspiration, sustenance and rest.
