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| Readable and downloadable Catalog for the Swept Away Exhibition @ CCMoA |
First Museum Exhibition
for Encaustic Painting on Cape Cod
Swept Away: Translucence, Transparence,
Transcendence in Contemporary Encaustic at Cape Cod Museum of Art
Cape Cod Museum of Art will
open its doors to Swept Away:
Translucence, Transparence, Transcendence in Contemporary Encaustic on May
18. This is the first museum in the region to feature encaustic painting in a
dedicated exhibition, and the first anywhere to focus on a particular and noteworthy
aspect of the medium: its extravagant quality of light. Thirty one artists from
around the country, all masters of the medium, have been invited by Michael
Giaquinto, curator of exhibitions at the museum. Some 50 paintings, sculptures
and prints reflecting a range of thematic expression will be shown.
Dates: May
18-June 23
Reception with the artists: Sunday, June 2, 5:30—7:30 p.m.
Reception with the artists: Sunday, June 2, 5:30—7:30 p.m.
Location: Cape
Cod Museum of Art, 60 Hope Lane, Dennis, Mass., off Route 6A
Museum information:
http://www.ccmoa.org
Participating artists:
Tracey Adams, California
Lynn Basa, Illinois
Dawna Bemis, Maine
Michael Billie, New Mexico
Binnie Birstein, Connecticut
Anne Cavanaugh, Massachusetts
Cecile Chong, New York
David A. Clark, California
Linda Cordner, Massachusetts
Elena De La Ville, Florida
Lorrie Fredette, New York
Karen Freedman, Pennsylvania
Milisa Galazzi, Rhode Island
Lorraine Glessner, Pennsylvania
Jane Guthridge, Colorado
Howard Hersh, California
Joanne Mattera, New York
Cherie Mittenthal,
Massachusetts
Sara Mast, Montana
Catherine Nash, Arizona
Laura Moriarty, New York
Nancy Natale, Massachusetts
Jane Allen Nodine, South Carolina
Lisa Pressman, New Jersey
Linda Ray, Virginia
Paula Roland, New Mexico
Marybeth Rothman, New Jersey
Toby Sisson, Rhode Island
Donna Hamil Talman, Massachusetts
Elise Wagner, Oregon
Gregory Wright, Massachusetts
About Encaustic
Like all paints, encaustic consists of finely ground
pigments suspended in a medium. With oil paint, that medium is linseed oil.
With acrylic, it’s plastic polymer. With encaustic, it’s beeswax. While there
are many material qualities to encaustic—texture, malleability, even aroma—the
most salient is the way it interacts with light. Entering the translucent surface
of a wax painting, light reflects against the gessoed ground, refracting
slightly so that it emanates as a soft glow.
In and of itself, refractive luminosity is not unique to
encaustic; Rembrandt was a master of the oil glaze, employing its pigmented
viscosity to capture light and return its refulgence to the eye of the viewer.
But the substantive nature of wax allows it to do something that other mediums,
even Rembrandt’s glazes, do not. Optically deeper than its actual thickness, wax
seems to hold the illumination momentarily before releasing it. To look at a
painting in this medium is to experience the sensation of light suspended.
A technical feature of encaustic is that the wax must be
heated to be applied. Keeping the paint molten, the artist works swiftly to
charge the brush and place the stroke, whether it be a quick daub, a filmy
layer or a gestural swipe. Each layer or group of brush strokes must be fused
with a heating tool (tacking iron, heat
gun or small torch) so that the surface, while comprised of discrete
compositional elements, is structurally unified. Wax can also be poured and
cast.
Though it dates to Ancient Greece and and was the material
component of the Fayum portraits of Greco-Roman Europe, encaustic fell into
disuse as less technically demanding paints such as tempera—later, oil and much
later, acrylic—were invented. It became known in the mid-20th
Century when Jasper Johns adopted it as his medium of choice and is now more widely
employed as studio artists integrate it into their practice.
Concurrent Encaustic
Conference
Swept Away has
been planned to coincide with the Seventh International Encaustic Conference,
which takes place in Provincetown. The Conference, founded and directed by
artist Joanne Mattera and now co-produced with Truro Center for the Art at
Castle Hill, is the only fully professional event of its kind. Devoted to the serious study of encaustic
painting, the Conference brings encaustic into the discourse of contemporary
art with three days of talks, panel discussions and demonstrations, and a
keynote talk by Barbara O’Brien, director and chief curator at the Kemper
Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, who will speak on the work of Petah
Coyne. This year over 200 artists from around the world will convene May
31-June 2 . Workshops at Castle Hill will bookend the event. More information:
. www.encausticconference.blogspot.com
. www.encausticconference.blogspot.com
