Painting With Wax

Painting with wax is magic.  I use photos and drawings and I paint with liquid wax over them.  I also use oils, oil sticks, engraving, and transfers of my photos.  Encaustics allow me to work on old paintings which is really fun.  I love the smell of wax, although it does require proper ventilation as it tends to trigger headaches and other harmful effects.  I like making my own paints from wax, dammar resin and dry pigments.  I love to see how the solid bloc melts and hardens in front of your eyes in seconds! 

This painting is part of a group of trees I photographed last winter.  The surface has drawings of trees that mingle and combine with the background photos.  Wax makes the images look alive, like a pulsating cell. Some of these paintings were shown at The New Art Festival, Ottawa, 2012.

Night Cell

Musical Agriculture

Tiller

This sculpture is part of my exhibition this week.  It is one of five objects I made some time ago, built with pieces of a dismantled piano.  When I look at these pieces they seem to make music and move in jerky movements, just like old agricultural mechanisms.  They take me back to Tinguely's toys.  Unlike Tinguely's my sculptures can't make sounds or squirt water but they offer the same kind of playfulness. My pieces honour old agriculture inventions, and they serve the purpose of tilling ideas.  Since they come from pieces of an old piano, they can still make music, which adds power when cultivating in my head.

Time Boxes I

Time Boxes are containers for amounts of time, allowing time to be managed conveniently.  Some Time Boxes are designed to be gently shaken over the the forehead for 'A While' to be dispensed. Other Time Boxes are ment to be rubbed with your middle finger for 'A Minute' to flow initially onto your hand and then softly onto the rest of your body. There are Time Boxes that need to be tipped sideways for 'A Lapse' to pour onto your environment.  They all have clear instructions for the user to follow in each case.  

These Time Boxes were made with white embroidered handkerchiefs, and sculpted with acrylic mediums. They go pinned to the wall. The Time Boxes II were shown at Chinatown Remixed, Ottawa, 2011.

Time Boxes II

Each of these Time Boxes II represent time in a geometric shape, partially covered to allow time waste.  The boxes hold time, as it sips through like wind flowing through open windows.  The scuptures embody my difficulty to understand time with the mind: they make me pretend I understand time with shapes.  Some of the Time Boxes are star-shaped, some have circular patterns, others are polygons.  Every shape represents different perceptions of passing time.

Time Boxes II were built with iron wire, most were soldered and some were bound with epoxic clay.  The fabrics were old patterned handkerchiefs, another form of time gone, a trend that seems to be coming back.  The 12 pieces were shown this year in the Chinatown Remixed 2010 Exhibition, and currently belong to private collections across North America (Seattle, Boston, Gatineau). The cost is U$ 300 each, and can be comissioned directly with the artist.