Barbara Bouman Jay

Beginning with a restricted color palette of hot, pigmented beeswax and damar resin, I create non-objective encaustic works on panel. The approach is intuitive, but through the process of working, becomes more analytical. My focus is on combinations of subtle layered, implied textural surfaces using soft geometric order and random mark making while building up layers of translucent color in waxed surfaces that invite the viewer to gaze into. I usually work in a series and on several pieces simultaneously, allowing a dialog to develop among pieces while exploring both experimental and deliberate actions. Content evolves from a variety of expressions, deliberate thoughts, and of previous experience. Content is not literal or representational, but rather a response to subconscious and conscious process. This process appeals to me since unpredictable events occur, offsetting the control of my hand. Throughout the process, the work is always changing with both additive and subtractive techniques to cover up or expose previous layers of actions and marks. The quietly contemplative pieces shift focus from the structure and color to the subtleties of texture and layering, to suggest a history, a balance of intellect and senses. The result is a luscious surface and aesthetic contemplative arrangementMy preoccupation is in the process of creating where the journey of rediscovery and re-evaluation of ideas occurs. I hope to capture the viewer’s interest and appreciation of both order and the unpredictable occurrences we all experience in life, and lead the mind into an awareness of minimal narrative content, making time and place indeterminable but familiar. New meanings are hinted at and the viewer is left with the depth, the surface and characteristics of the wax to complete the picture in their own terms of exploration and judgment.