2011-12
As humans we often try to control the narrative that accompanies the events of our lives. We are surrounded by systems: social, political, and economic to name but a few, and while I focus on story in my work it is here that my interests lie. What happens to a system over time when different forces are applied? Is there a breakdown? Is there a coalescing of the different influences? It is easy to observe the breakdown and the connectivity and growth of systems if we stop and look at the deteriorating infrastructure and the development of renewal that surrounds us. What is the narrative revealed through this cycle?
Throughout the process of creating my work, my focus on both narrative and the organic system of combining my images and introducing wax remains at the forefront. However, I purposefully inject the development of each composition with media and processes that cause an almost complete loss of control. Open flames, irons and heat lamps have an immediate effect upon wax, the encaustic medium so integral to my overall process, as well as on the underlying imagery.
The juxtaposition of those initial images, drawn from my own collection of digital photographs and ephemera, to the wax, creates a story or a conversation, strengthening that exchange. It is the alteration of the images through the additive and subtractive methods of applying encaustic that changes the narrative of the work often producing new and unexpected systems with multiple interpretations.
