CURRENT EXHIBITION

The art of encaustic has been around for centuries: it was used in the Fayum mummy portraits in Egypt, made between 100 and 300 AD, by Mexican muralists like Diego Rivera, and most famously in recent art by Jasper Johns in his “Flags” and “Targets” series of the 1960s. At its simplest, encaustic painting involves using heated beeswax to which pigments are added. The liquid or paste is then applied to a surface, most often wood or canvas. But it is an endlessly versatile medium that invites experimentation and has attracted the talents not just of painters and printmakers, but of sculptors and photographers as well.

Our two artists in the main galleries at the Wright through April 28, Ellen Koment and Paula Roland, are both virtuosos of encaustic who migrated to Santa Fe within five years of each other.

Roland has worked almost exclusively in encaustic for the last 20 years, exploring a wide range of abstract imagery, most recently making small-and large-scale monotypes and paintings that resemble imaginary maps. “My work changes as my interests change and as the world evolves,” she says. “It always relates to the natural world, ecology, and a spiritual connection. These images navigate interior territories—a medley of memory, images, hopes, and topography of self, carrying my childhood landscape forward in my mind.”

Originally from New York, Koment taught in the Bay Area for 25 years before moving to Santa Fe in 1994. In the last decade or so, she has perfected a technique for pouring liquid encaustic in layers, attaining a jewel-like brilliance that puts her in the tradition of Color Field painters such as Helen Frankenthaler and Morris Louis. “Pouring on paper as a technique, for me, requires me to be present to the process and aware of all that is happening on the paper,” Koment says. “One must act in reaction to the way that the first color has fallen, it exists in the area between control and chaos. An accident can open doors, create new impulses, change the direction of your work, but ultimately, the work must come from a place or intention.