Four Encaustic Pieces
by Jana Gering
Here is the Church. 2020. Wire sculpture with encaustic, paperclay, image transfer, alcohol ink, formed with the shape of the artist's hands. Private collection.
My work explores experience through the lenses of time and perception, and through the use of layers. Often I will bury words, items, or elements within coatings of beeswax, perhaps to reveal them in a new way, enriched by the layers of history and work. Encaustic as a medium allows me to engage very physically with my works, by dipping, coating, sculpting, and painting on colors and layers to create distance, or by scraping back layers to see something in a new way.
Holding. 2022. Encaustic on board, with cardboard mesh, clay, image transfer, paper, oil crayon.
Encaustic lends itself to sculptural formation. While the paint is warmed to a liquid, it hardens quickly and can be manipulated into dimensions. Forming the nestlike sculptural element in Holding, I was considering the things I make room to hold and nurture in my life.
Land. 10 x 10". 2022. Encaustic on board with pigment and ink.
The Something Seed. 2022. 6 x 6". Encaustic with oil stick, ink, gold leaf, dried leaves, alcohol inks, and bitumen.
Building over time can result in a work that holds a lot of history, change, homes, and contexts. The Something Seed took years to complete and contains many, many layers of materials within the wax, from gold to tar (bitumen). It came to represent to me a seed of something yet unknown, and how we may build lives on the edges of our own understanding.
Jana Gering grew up traveling around the West Coast of the United States, from Mexico to Canada, taking in the abstract landscapes surrounding the Interstate 5 freeway. She earned her B.A. in English and Art at Trinity Western University, and is a mixed-media interdisciplinary artist working from Whatcom County in Washington State. Jana began working with the process of encaustic in 2011, using layers of beeswax and damar resin to paint on rigid surfaces, and now teaches local workshops and mentors artists in the intuitive and meaningful process of painting with wax. To see more of her work or learn about the process, visit www.leafbyjana.com.
