Page 34 - The Enso Circle Artists-in-Residence Exhibition Catalog, December 2022
P. 34
About
the
Artist & MICHELLE BELTO
the
Work
During the last four terms of The Enso Circle Residency my artistic goals
centered around cold wax as a medium. Since my introduction to this intuitive
way of oil painting in 2014, I have been interested to see how a subtractive
wax process could be integrated into my current encaustic work.
When Clouds Part is a combination of these two wax mediums-cold wax used
as an underpainting and encaustic applied as finishing layers. Cold Wax is a
heavy bodied oil painting medium that allows for mark making techniques at
differing levels of dryness, adding visual history and rich texture. Once fully
cured, the painting is ready to accept thin layers of encaustic.
Scraping back to reveal what is below and adding wax to shape what I see is
at the heart of the interaction between these two mediums. Finding a way from
Intention to Attention speaks to what I hoped to discover in this residency in my
ongoing search for more authenticity in my work.
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