Enduring Earth Documentation

Enduring Earth at the Monroe Arts Center 1315 11th Street, Monroe, WI

June 9 to August 18th, 2023

Credit All installation photos: Tom VanEynde

MY ARTIST'S TALK FROM THE OPENING
My thoughts about Abstraction are that it expresses a different way of how we think and perceive the world. 
 In my work I seek to find a balance between intellectual and emotional content
Intellectually I enjoy exploring the interplay of form, line, color, balance within the piece, 
Those traditional design elements are important to me.
Emotionally I believe Abstraction speaks to the parts of our perceptions that don’t include language and can’t always be explained. I hope the meaning of the work is unique to each viewer and  reaches  a deeper level of their experience.
To do this, I am exploring the interplay between abstraction and representation. Imagery layered into the painting with the formal elements is meant to evoke memory and spark imagination rather than present a narrative.
The journey of this work started as a formal exploration during which I used photographs from an outcropping of bedrock along the shores of Lake Michigan near my parent’s house in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. I had taken the photographs over time when I visited and became interested in using them as sources for my paintings.
I soon realized that that place held a deeper meaning for me. (It’s interesting that I was attracted this place without knowing exactly why but the answer became clearer to me as I created my paintings). As I worked on my series that I call Bedrock Abstraction, I realized that my motivation was to direct attention to the earth.  Beyond the fact that the photographs were beautiful, I was fascinated with the structure and age of the Bedrock, which led me to contemplate my place in geological time. 
The time it took for the bedrock to be created is almost incomprehensible and speaks to the power and endurance of forces much greater than us. 
I began to include inkjet prints of my photographs and reductive elements in silk screen of the bedrock to draw attention to this power.

The Pandemic and growing awareness of the climate crisis began to influence my art making and gave me a renewed sense of the important role that art can have in society. I hope that through my work I can create a sense of wonder, mystery, and reverence for our connection to the planet.

Like many artists during the Pandemic, I looked for a response to the unsettling times and created the series Tectonic Shift as an outgrowth of the Bedrock Abstraction Series. A Tectonic shift is an upheaval in the rocky foundation of the planet.  Bedrock Abstraction was about stability and continuity, but Tectonic Shift for me was about the abrupt changes that seemed to be happening. I used more intense color and harder geometric elements in these paintings.

The Rejuvenation series came about as an expression of the search for healing. So many of us went outdoors to experience safety in a place where we could be with others. I began to add Forest Imagery to my paintings, to recall that experience of spiritual renewal.  During that time, I also experienced the loss of several members of my family and the woods became a reference to the cycles of death and rebirth that occur constantly in the forest.

The medium of encaustic is well suited for my work. It is a wax based medium consisting of pigmented filtered bee’s wax with damar, a type of tree resin that hardens the wax. I started using it  around 2005.

Encaustic has translucent qualities that lend itself to layering and collage. The wax is applied while melted and must be reheated using a torch or heat gun to make the wax flow and fuse the layers to each other. The word encaustic means to burn in and that refers to this fusing process. It is actually a very old medium, first used by the ancient Egyptians to create portraits and paint boats. The surviving portraits are proof of its archival quality. There has been a resurgent interest in encaustic as a fine art medium in the last 25 years or so, although Jasper Johns is the most well-known artist to have worked with encaustic. The medium lends itself to unique ways of working for each artist. Please don’t refer to it as encaustic Art!

I create on wood panels to provide a stable surface for the layers of wax. I will have a general idea of the theme and layout of the work.I sometimes start by adding a silkscreen element as the first layer, then I add layers of encaustic medium and often imbed archival inkjet photographs printed on thin Japanese paper into the wax. I will respond to this information as I developed the overall design with more layers of colored wax, fusing between each layer. I can vary the translucency of the color, scrape back the wax , score into it and layer colors  to add depth to the painting. I work rather intuitively until I am satisfied and usually end by adding silk screen to the top surface as a way to finish the composition. Using the photographs and  printing processes allows me to repeat elements and create a conversation between each painting.