Show Starts in One Week!

The Bearclaw Gallery Presents
124st - 104ave
780.482.1204

TRICKSTER
New Works by Aaron Paquette

March 3 - March 15 2007
artist will be in attendance 2-4pm opening day

An Unexplored Dream
4" x 6"
Encaustic, Oil
on Canvas

2007

There is nothing so compelling to me than a waking dream that has not, or can not, be explored. The mystery and meaning must lie asleep until the truth unravels on its own.

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In this piece, I'm using encaustic (to be more specific, Beeswax). I've melted it until it runs smooth and then I spread it over the surface of the work. During this first stage, I layered in Oil Paint to give colour to the wax. When the wax hardened, I took a sculpting tool and carved my design into the surface of the wax and then worked more Oil paint into the incisions. I finished it up with a few glazes of Oil, again, worked into the surface of the encaustic, and set it aside to cure.

I had a hard time getting a picture of this piece as there are translucent layers that seemed to be vying for the camera's auto-focus and most of the results were fairly blurry. If you haven't seen encaustic work, go check it out. The medium is as versatile as there are artists to use it, and when the layering effect is captured, it can add a subtle beauty to a piece that is difficult to achieve in any other way.

In many examples I have seen, there is a brightness to the work as light bounces down through the layers and then shoots right back out from the surface. For my effort here, I chose a more moody quality. The piece is filled with shadow and a murkiness which fit my intent perfectly.