Gretchen Reynolds: How did you
ever start working with encaustic?
Russell Thurston: My art training
was in photography and illustration
and I worked in advertising in
Chicago after grad school. Then
I began doing illustration work for
corporate clients and worked at
that for a number of years. It was
an interesting time to be working
as an illustrator, since computer-based
illustration was just
becoming possible. I still liked
making everything by hand then
eventually used the computer to
facilitate the final art.
Then in the mid-1990s, I
moved to Santa Fe. I loved living
here, but it was relatively remote,
in terms of corporate illustration
work and everyone was starting
to use stock, so the market
dried-up. So for a number of
reasons, I decided to really focus
on doing fine art and see where it
would lead.
One day I was on Canyon
Road, which is lined with galleries
and I saw some work in one that
really attracted me. It was some
encaustic paintings by Betsy Eby.
I thought that they were so interesting
and the surface was so
beautiful that I decided I wanted
to learn how to use that same
medium.
GR: Did you know much about
encaustic at the time?
RT: Not really. I’ve always
loved Jasper Johns’ encaustic
paintings, the look of them, the
way he built up the surface,
letting all the brush marks and
drips show. But I’d never tried
to use the medium myself and
didn’t know anything about the
techniques. I took a workshop
that was being taught by Paula
Roland, a terrific artist, here in
Santa Fe, and I got hooked right
away.
GR: What was it about encaustic
that hooked you?
RT: I loved the seductiveness
of the medium, the luminous
quality of it. I also loved that you
could see the hand of the artist
in the work. It was so different
from the more impersonal, slick,
computer generated pieces that
I’d been making and I liked that
aspect.
GR: Did you find encaustic easy
to work with?
RT: (laughs) No! Anyone who’s
tried painting with encaustic will
tell you that, initially, there’s a
steep learning curve. You can’t
paint with encaustic in the same
way that you can with acrylic
and oils. You have to heat and
fuse the layers, and you have to
work very quickly. It can be pretty
unforgiving. At first I got frustrated
a lot. With some time and more
research about the medium, I
learned to accept encaustic on
its own terms and then I started
getting the results I wanted in the
paintings.
Tree (How the West was Won) Detail
2010, Encaustic, metal, string,
tissue paper and wood. 6’ x 3’
GR: What makes working with
encaustic so unique, do you
think?
RT: I love the properties related to
the seductive surface, the tactile
feeling, and the fact that you can
manipulate it in so many ways. So
much of it involves heat and how
it’s applied. But it takes awhile to
learn to control. That’s not to say
that you can’t make encaustic
look like oils or other mediums,
but it’s harder to work with and,
for me, the pleasure of encaustic
comes from finding ways to use
its particular strengths effectively,
instead of trying to make it
perform like some other medium.
www.EAINM.com
GR: What’s one of your
favorite aspects or strengths of
encaustic?
RT: I love that you can come back
to an encaustic painting days,
weeks or even years after you’ve
first created it and work with
the surface again. That’s pretty
hard to do with oils or acrylics.
Also, it’s a bit like alchemy. You
transform the surface with heat
and beautiful things happen on
the surface and in the colors,
some of which you can’t control.
But if you know that’s going to
happen, you can embrace the
unexpected and incorporate it
into the art.
GR: What’s one of your least
favorite aspects of encaustic?
RT: It wouldn’t be about working
with the medium, but about the
realities of dealing with storage
and shipping of encaustic work.
It can be fragile and accidents
happen if you don’t take precautions.
I’ve had a painting melt
in the back of a hot car in the
summertime. Most encaustic
artists could tell a similar story.
You do have to use a
little more care in shipping and
handling, but I’ve learned how to
deal with it.
GR: In your work, what do you
feel are your main themes? What
are you trying to explore?
RT: I think my primary theme is
the collision between science and
nature, or technology and nature.
Is technology going to save us or
be our downfall? That’s an issue
that really interests me. If I had
to sum it up in one sentence, it
would be that my work is about
the power struggle between
nature and technology. I’m also
interested in visually depicting the
things that are unseen—particle
physics, String Theory, interrelated
systems.
If I hadn’t been an artist, I
would have been a scientist, but I
couldn’t do the math.
GR: Are you aiming for realism?
RT: No, not really, not in the sense
of representation. I’m more interested
in our place in the natural
world, my place in it, our feelings
Russell Thurston
Portfolio
7
Fall