SUE GORDON

ARTIST STATEMENT

I paint on birch panels using encaustic medium (beeswax and damar) and fuse each layer using a blowtorch or heat gun.  Part of the pleasure of encaustic painting comes from the scent of the wax, luminosity, the forgiving nature of wax, extreme tactility, the soft heat as I apply it and the unexpected results of carving, scraping and adding to the beeswax.

For better and for worse, painting is the way I move through the world. Painting allows me to explore my own psyche’s response to world events and to this entire age of anxiety. The many layers of encaustic paint are like layers of memory and history in all of us, sometimes obscured or blunted by the passage of time. I seem never to arrive where I planned to go. It’s always an adventure.