mixing it up

From the Suspension Series (scrim) 

pigment-based ink on silk, mylar, wax, found wood

2010/11  appr. 16 x 16"

After being away from wax for a couple of years and working in oil, I've spent the past few months easing my way back. Having also spent a considerable period of time working on digital photo-based images, as well as creating a large body of work of oil on mulberry paper, I wasn't ready to walk away from paper just yet.

I gave myself some freedom to experiment with numerous materials I hadn't used with wax before: pigment-based ink on silk, Duralar (mylar), corrugated translucent plastic, and double mulberry paper, encaustic medium and paint; pigment stick, powdered pigment, mica, and other powdered materials, graphite, and found wood.

In all cases, I was after light...capturing it, directing it, allowing it. This does not translate much in these photos, but is very apparent in person. Something to work on--how to photograph the work to more accurately show the play of light through the wax and other translucent and semi-transparent materials.

Most remain untitled, for the moment at least, with the two digital images printed on silk coming from a series that has been around for awhile. All of these works are of various sizes, and the smaller ones I think of as maquettes, sort of, but may make their way to the light of day. Who knows....

untitled 

digital photo-based print on onionskin paper, 

wax, mulberry paper, mylar, found wood

2011  appr. 11 x 14"

untitled (from the working title Open Book Series)

mulberry paper, pigment stick, graphite, wax

2011  appr. 14 x 18"

untitled

wax, pigment stick, graphite, powdered pigment on mulberry paper

note: this has four deckled edges

2011  appr. 22 x 30"

untitled

wax, pigment stick, graphite, powdered pigment on mulberry paper

2011   appr. 28 x 42"

untitled (from the working title Open Book Series)

mulberry paper, pigment stick, graphite, wax mounted on Arches paper (22 x 30)

2011  appr. 18 x 24"

untitled

wax, pigment stick, graphite, 

powdered pigment on mulberry paper 

2011   appr. 28 x 42"

untitled

wax, pigment stick, graphite, 

powdered pigment on mulberry paper 

2011   appr. 28 x 42"

untitled 

digital photo-based print on onionskin paper, 

wax, mulberry paper, mylar

2011  appr. 11 x 14"

From the Suspension Series (scrim) 

pigment-based ink on silk, mylar, wax, 
on mulberry paper and translucent corrugated plastic

2010/11  appr. 20 x 30"

line

Line. Until recently, line did not figure prominently in my work.
I was all about the form. In the field.

hard rain (prototype) 2004
12 x 12 encaustic on panel
collection of Ruth Morpeth

Sometimes a horizon line was called for.
But I don't really think there is a line
so much as there is a juxtapostion of forms.
In the field.

untitled landscape 2006
24 x 24 encaustic on panel
collection of the artist


More form in the field. Maybe a few drips.

Lacuna (red cassandra 1 & 2) 2008
24 x 24 encaustic on panel (each)



Then came the drips. Big time. Lines as drips.
Drips as lines. Lines caused by drips.

ophelia red 2009
36 x 36 encaustic on panel
private collection


And then, the horizon line became insinuated into the work.
A little obsessively, I think. But not aggressively. It's lurking in the background.

false walls (umber) 2009
24 x 24 encaustic on panel


Line takes front and center and
pushes form and field to the background.

from the sea 1 2009
6" x 6" digital photo

Old Material/New Thought: Ed Angell at the Gallery at R&F Handmade Paints

Basalt Ed Angell 2008
found lead, pigmented beeswax

The origin of the symbol Pb (lead) is the Latin word "plumbum," meaning "liquid silver." I love these terms. Ed Angell's current show Old Material, New Thought, now up at R&F Handmade Paints, uses lead and other materials combined with encaustic. These wall-mounted pieces explore process and materiality with easy elegance, in a post-minimal, poetic manner. Though fairly small-scale, and creating an intimate viewing experience, they are also suggestive of objects of a larger scale, bringing to mind certain Barnett Newman paintings. Angell's use of highly saturated, pigmented wax (such as quinacridone red) against the gray of the lead creates an intense contrast; the several pieces using black-pigmented wax offer a more harmonious relationship between wax and lead. In both cases, the viewer is drawn in for closer inspection of the construction of the pieces.

The artist's facility and mastery of materials is especially shown to great effect in the works with gleaming black tar that gracefully descends over the top of the lead substrate. This is also present in the artist's use of hard, impenetrable surfaces that still manage to invite contemplation. Tar, lead, wax: the artist's deft material handling and the relationship of the materials' origin through ancient earth processes gently suggest watchwords such as control, containment, compression. and contrast.

The work can be seen at R&F Handmade Paints in Kingston, NY, through September 20, 2008

Origins at Penn

I’m pleased to announce that I will have two encaustic paintings included in “In the Beginning: Exploring Origins in Contemporary Art”, an exhibit of art work held as part of the 2008 University of Pennsylvania Graduate Humanities Forum, which is centered around the theme of Origins. I’ve included a link to a web page with information on the exhibit. The show runs from February 4-29, 2008, and I am planning to be at the closing reception, to be held on Friday, February 29, from 5-7. http://humanities.sas.upenn.edu/07-08/exhibition.shtml

The Penn Graduate Humanities Forum, unknown to me until recently, but in existence since 2000, offers programming across the humanities. Each year, a different theme is chosen: Travel; Word & Image; Sleep & Dreams; Belief; The Book; Time; Style; and this year's theme, Origins. Here are the paintings and related statement.

Origin: Identity, Trauma, and Memory

Lacuna, from the Latin lacuna: a cavity, a hollow; a pool, empty space, or missing letters or words in a manuscript; a gap in memory.

As a therapist working with women trauma survivors I became intrigued with the idea of “what’s missing” relative to identity formation and memory. Many survivors’ identities were formed around traumatic experiences and the gaps in those memories.

Vague, miasmic clouds of color portent indefinable occurrences. Layers of pigmented wax, once molten, form transparent layers that play against opacity to suggest clarity muddled by uncertainty. Marks beneath layers suggest the unknowable, or that which is only marginally accessible. Blank areas appear vacant—was there something there once, or never anything—or vestiges of the unfathomable?

For most survivors of complex, lifelong trauma, the very origin of their lives began around trauma, neglect, and abuse. Seeking answers and understanding through exploration of who one is and where one came from may mean emergence into pools of shame, pain, confusion. Viewed through the lens of trauma, what is present in a memory can be as painful as imagining what might be obscured or even irretrievable. These paintings seek to honor the struggle with identity, memory and healing.

image left: Lacuna 3 2007 encaustic on panel 24 x 24

image right: Lacuna 7 2007 encaustic on panel 24 x 24

Dave Foss & Michelle Marcuse at Gallery Siano

Immersion
Dave Foss



Movement Over Time
Michelle Marcuse

Present Tense is the two-person exhibition of paintings and works on paper at Siano Gallery in Old City. Sharing the grand exhibition space are two Philadelphia artists, Dave Foss and Michelle Marcuse. Both are active in Philadelphia's arts community: Foss is the executive director of the Da Vinci Art Alliance, which has a 76-year-long history; Marcuse teaches and provides workshops in various encaustic techniques in her Kensington studio.

For both artists, these current bodies of work represent shifts and new directions in their processes. In a brief talk at last night's opening, Foss spoke of his work, which was created in 2006-2007, as a departure from the staining and pouring of paint onto the surface that had been his metier for some time. For this body of work Foss returned to the brush, incorporating line into his colorful, layered, well-worked surfaces. Foss uses the web-like network of line in Immersion to provide order against the chaotic layers of paint, resulting in a sense of tension, perhaps referencing the shared title of the exhibition Present Tense.

Marcuse, well versed in numerous encaustic techniques, presents here a wide range of processes; what she speaks of as a new direction for her is the introduction of digital imagery into the paintings. The resulting imagery and combined processes both confront and draw the viewer in with apparitional allusions hiding in and around opaque and transluscent areas of pigmented wax. Marcuse captures the idea of the raw, ugly beauty of an urban life, working the wax to suggest layers of decay and corrosion. The digital imagery is often presented in muted earth tones with vibrant pinks or blues playing against it, as in Movement Over Time.

This exhibit of paintings and works on paper covers a lot of ground -- emotionally, formally and in the materiality of the work. Foss looks at existential, universal issues on large canvases. Using a smaller format,including a series of near-miniature monotypes, Marcuse studies the overlooked, the easily missed "small overlooked pieces" of her world. One need not have a personal acquaintance with the artists to gain a sense of the intent and purpose behind the work. A dialogue is evident between the two artists; working organic and intuitive against hard edge and geometric, perhaps working in balance and harmony, but each with a distinctive voice to assert some order or control over the elements in life that cannot be wrangled into submission.

August 23-September 22, 2007
First Friday: September 7 6:00-9:00 pm

Gallery Siano
309 Arch Street
Philadelphia

vernacular geometry

Inspired by Joanne Mattera's recent blog postings of urban color and geometry photos, I'm putting my own photos of what I've come to think of as "vernacular geometry" out here. joannemattera.blogspot.com/

These were taken over the past few months in the Old City area of Philadelphia whilst on a gallery-hopping expedition with my buddy artist Michelle Marcuse. See her work at http://www.michellemarcuse.com. She's an artist working in encaustic and photo transfer, so we collected some other digital photos images of "vernacular" light.

Joanne says she's been snapping these kind of images for a long time, and I know I have. I figure other artists who do not work primarily in photography must be doing the same. I'm hoping others will post their "vernacular" imagery here as well.

Deluge (Red/Gray)
Pam Farrell 2007
24 x 24 encaustic on board