My involvement with the encaustic medium dates back more then 25 years , when I first learned the technique in graduate school . While teaching art in the 1990 ’ s at the American University in Cairo , I came across many of the Fayoum “ Portraits ” that were originally , created to preserve the identity of a deceased individual . At the time , most of my paintings had been in oil . I began to more seriously work with encaustic , integrating it more fully into my studio practice . For the past 5 years it ' s been my principle medium , as I explore its potential and expressive capabilities .
As an artist , I ' m very interested in the capacity of art to convey a sense of time , place and human presence . In my own creative process , memory is central to achieving this end . Memory is both personal and collective , a space held deep within our persons . Though veiled by time , it is a place that can be visited for insight and inspiration . In many ways , layering paint is like the layering of time — new levels of paint cover or obscure earlier gestures , just as the immediacy of the present perpetually slips into the past , overtaken by new experience . We are left with artifacts and memories .
Full Fathom Five , encaustic on 5 panels , 10.5 x 47.3 inches , 2012
[ Full Fathom Five takes its title from Ariel ' s Song in Shakespeare ' s Tempest . This is a poem that my father had my brothers and I memorize as children . It speaks to loss , memory , and transformation .]
“ Full fathom five thy father lies Of his bones are coral made Those are pearls that were his eyes ..."