To wax lyrical is to express a deep personal emotion with rhapsodic expression. The six artists participating in the Waxing Lyrical show on April 27 at the Sue and Eugene Mercy Jr. Gallery express their ideas beautifully, poetically, even musically in a craft called encaustic art, a difficult and demanding medium.
The artists participating in Waxing Lyrical have all worked in encaustic art for many years, long enough to have attained fluency and beyond. The artists include Leslie Sobel, who is curator of the exhibit, Daniella Woolf, Lorraine Glessner, Martha Ceccio, Cari Hernandez and Lynda Cole. Each uses encaustic in a very different manner but the together they are united by the mastery of their craft, the lyricism of their work and the intimacy of their vision. Each has focused on using encaustic as a medium of unique beauty and materiality, pushing the range of the medium into interesting and highly unusual directions and yet producing work that features the particular characteristics of encaustic.
First used by Fayum period Egyptians more than 2000 years ago, encaustic is a very ancient painting medium comprised of filtered beeswax combined with pigments for color and damar resin to increase the surface durability. Encaustic is worked in a molten state. The wax is heated, applied, and manipulated with regular paintbrushes and a number of less traditional tools including a propane torch, a paint stripping heat gun, dental tools, razor blades, putty knives, and smooth pebbles.
There will be an opening reception on Tuesday, April 27 from 6:45 8:45 p.m. The public is invited to attend the opening reception and view the exhibitions during regular gallery hours. The show will run through June 15. The Sue and Eugene Mercy, Jr. Gallery is located in the Richmond Art Center on the campus of The Loomis Chaffee School in Windsor, Connecticut. The gallery is open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday and Thursday evenings from 7:30 9 p.m. and Sunday afternoon from 1 4 p.m. There is no admission charge. Please note that the gallery is closed during school vacations. For additional information, call the Richmond Art Center Information Line, 860-687-6030 or visit www.mercygallery.org.
|
