Tactile Encounters: The Influence and Appearance of Texture

left: Beyond Form, encaustic mixed media, 12x12 inches
right: Each other, encaustic mixed media, 12x12 inches

I feel so fortunate to have my work in five shows this coming month in various venues, that I will be announcing here as they come up. This exhibit is particularly exciting because of the theme of the show. Members of FUSEDChicago were invited to submit works for consideration that dealt with the creation of texture or the influence of texture using encaustic as the medium. One of the qualities that has always drawn me to encaustic as my medium of choice is the ability to create texture. Even when a work has a smooth as glass surface, the "absence" of texture of that surface is especially intriguing.

I will have three paintings in this show. Two were from a series, the ones above, that I did last year and at the beginning of this year in which the pieces really do have a lot of texture- integration of papers with wax and oil glazes, layers of transparent images to create depth.

The other piece that got in is so very different from the paintings above- reflecting the new work that occurred in the middle of this year. The interesting thing is that "Filter" really does have an appearance of texture, but in a totally different way than the above works. When I brought this piece to Emily Rutledge's studio for her critique, she kept running her hands over the surface because of the smoothness of it- very different from how she normally works. It was funny to see her running her hands over and over the surface. It's really something that we all want to do when we see these pieces up in a gallery but aren't allowed to!


Filter
encaustic mixed media
24x24 inches

As always I am honored to be showing with such wonderful artists that belong to FUSEDChicago. I am really looking forward to seeing the exhibit and how we all approach texture in different ways.