History Revealed

Encaustic (beeswax with damar resin).

Encaustic is an ancient painting technique dating back to the ancient Greeks, best known in the Fayum Mummy Portraits in the 1st through 3rd centuries AD. The 20th century has seen a rebirth of encaustic on a major scale, particularly in the US, but also more recently in Australia.

Encaustic is a Greek word meaning "to heat or burn in" (enkausticos). Heat is used throughout the process from melting the beeswax and varnish to fusing the layers of wax with a heat gun or torch. It consists of natural bees wax and dammar resin (crystallised tree sap). Pigments may be added to the media, or it can be applied in a natural colourless state. The medium is melted and applied with a brush or tool, and each layer is then reheated to fuse it to the previous layer.

This image was created by starting with a blank substrate and experimenting spontaneously with colour and texture. The result is always the making of a discovery of a work in which I was not in consciously in quest of.

Abstract art can be viewed as the visual arts equivalent of instrumental music, if instrumental music is considered as abstract song. Music is able to be codified in the form of a score consisting of notes, keys and times. Abstract art is likewise able to be codified as a composition comprised of texture, form, line, colour, value, shape and movement.

Abstract art and instrumental music both impact on all who experience them.