During our first conversation , June detailed how her curiosity towards encaustic was piqued when she first held a torch to the beeswax and discovered that the process creates “ many little fires .” June Lampe ’ s practice has resulted in many ‘ little fires ’ of its own , particularly in light of the inspiration she has ignited in countless students and professionals . As it stands today , the cooled wax of a Lampe encaustic is a biographic topography that effectively welds together the past and the present . These paintings circle the historical and then , at once , are emancipated from the narratives of others in pursuit of the personal . Artist and technique , aligned in their durability and timelessness , combine to exude a fluid commentary on the eternal and what it means to survive . In the case of June ’ s artwork , it can be argued that the process of encaustic acts as a metaphor that asks its viewers how a thing can be burned , melted , transformed and then somehow shift state into something more whole as opposed to charred and disfigured . June Lampe ’ s practice functions as an aesthetic brush fire , releasing mere beeswax and pigments from their mortal , temporal state to reveal the intensely unique legends of our world , both ancient and contemporary .