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Amy Melchior - 06
Amy Melchior –
I am currently working in Encaustic which is an ancient process of cooking bees wax, resin and pigment together, then fusing the layers with heat.
Wax is a fascinating medium, the smell and the sensual luminosity.
The way it creates a great depth and sculptural texture through the layering of the wax.
Images appear and disappear as if the wax has its own agenda.
In these works I have also been playing with gouging and scraping into the wax, uncovering or guiding you into what has gone on the surface before.
I have experience in painting, photography and all forms of printmaking especially etching and lithography.
I was a finalist in 2004 Goldwater awards with an encaustic painting.
I am also a finalist in the Waikato Contemporary New Zealand art awards this year (2006) with another encaustic painting.
I have been involved in two group shows at Compose Gallery in 2005/2006.
I have recently had a successful solo show in Wellington at South Coast Gallery.
A bit about me - I was born in Wellington in 1974, grew up in Hawke’s Bay then moved to Sydney, traveled around Asia and returned to NZ to have my first boy. I then went back to Asia, Europe and Morocco. I am now living in Grey Lynn with my two boys Zephyr, Luka and partner Jeff.
Encaustic paintings were first documented around 800B.C. in ancient Greece on hulls of boats, then later in Egypt on the tombs of mummies. Hence the encaustic medium is incredibly resilient and easy to care for. It would take extreme temperatures of heat or cold to damage it and to clean simply buff with a soft cloth. Care should be taken with the edges.
This art form is a process of applying molten wax colours to a surface for the creation of images, which started over 2 millennia ago. There are several formulae and a number of application techniques discovered for the creation of the original Roman Egyptian wax portraits. The Hot Wax Method - is how we might think of encaustic in its truest sense - that is in using heat as the solvent for beeswax based pigmented wax paints.
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