From beehive to hotplate to the artist’s hand, encaustic has evolved as a versatile medium applied to almost every artistic style. A long-overdue look at a newly popular art form, this book explores 79 North American and international artists’ feelings about their work in encaustic and how they use it to express their inner worlds and the world around them. Eight chapters organize the artists by geographical region and focus on how the heated beeswax and resin material is used to create seductive, skin-like surfaces and rich, layered membranes. More than 2,000 years old, this cross-disciplinary medium ranges from painting to sculpture, assemblage, collage, and printmaking and encourages risk-taking in a way that other materials do not. Its inherent contradictions–it can be hot or cold, malleable or solid, opaque or translucent, layered or thin, permanent or fragile–make it all the more fascinating.

AUTHOR: As research director of Vose Galleries, Boston, Anne Lee wrote and designed many exhibition catalogues. E. Ashley Rooney is the author of numerous books on contemporary art. 475 colour images