Artist’s Statement: Changing Coasts

Painting is my visual diary I record certain moments of time in each piece. Right now, I am busy translating the light of Asheville, which I find spectacular, into the encaustic paintings you see here. Encaustic, beeswax and Damar resin, has its own particular luminosity, the light is drawn into the wax, shattered and redirected toward you, the viewer. This work has great depth and the appearance of being lit from within.
The encaustic painting method is centuries old and was widely use by the Greeks and Egyptians, you may have seen the life-like mummy portraits of Fayum, they are rendered in encaustic.

We, my husband, Michael, dog, May and me, have recently moved to Asheville and during our house search I requested three things: studio space, a killer closet, and a mountain to look upon. Fate smiled upon us and I am happy to say, “I am three for three.” What I did not know at the time was how seductive that mountain would be. I sit outside and study its form, how the trees change, how the light reflects, and what the clouds look like as they pass over. This “mountain contemplation” is glorious and blissful day dreaming; the day dreaming I have longed for, the day dreaming that completely recharges my soul. Hey, try it!

The Changing Coasts series is familiar in my abstraction of the landscape, but newly infused with Western North Carolina light. I consider abstraction the best way to describe the moments I choose to recall. These are significant because this memory has pricked some deep part of my brain. From this, my jumpstarted brain sends a message to my heart that then gets my hands moving toward a painting. This is no quiet storm, it is an all consuming, compelling reaction that absolutely requires my presence in the studio; it’s paint or put me in a straight jacket.

Working in wax, painting with encaustic, is a very physical endeavor. You’ll find heat guns, hot plates, large wooden panels, and gas torches in my studio. This physicality is very appealing to me as I layer and scrape, gouge and fill, heat and distress each work. When paired with my own visual vocabulary, this way of working is the perfect combination of process, abstraction, color, movement, and composition.

Mary Farmer

January 2009