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Encaustic in Carol's Work: an adaptable and illuminating element in her mixed media artwork
Encaustic paints differ from acrylics and oils in that during the manufacture of encaustic paint, beeswax is incorporated with the pigments to produce the painting medium. Applied in a warm, liquid state, the colours flow smoothly from the brush or palette knife. Heat is used to fuse the layers of paint, and this thermal exchange triggers a blending and shifting of tones. It is a lively interplay, enhanced by the natural translucence of the integrated wax. Distinctively rich in colour, encaustic paintings often seem be illuminated from inside themselves. What animates Carol's work is the challenge offered by these moments of encaustic fusion. Colours melt and blend, forms emerge or even disappear. She is called upon to be both skillful and responsive; to direct and to react, and to do so in an instant. Her subjects are the shadows, forms, textures and light of the Okanagan landscape where she lives. Constantly fluid, always luminous, her surroundings present themselves as surfaces which are laid and overlaid, each changing, and altered by, the one before it. It is a landscape full of motion. Images of this setting are held in her mind’s eye. They guide her choice of colours and her initial layout of a painting. The finished work, however, is a record of the transactions that occur between idea and hand, colour, heat, and wax. Each painting charts the coming together of these elements. |
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