Title: Grief

Opening: January 2025

Artist Statement:

It was a year ago when I first showed a few of these paintings. I was both compelled and very uncomfortable about it. I have since finished another one and also dug out a few more that last year I hadn’t even considered to be a part of this series. One was so painful that I tucked it away and forgot about it, and some others I hadn’t made as consciously about grief, but in retrospect I can see that is exactly what they were about. It seems this is the very nature of grief for me and how I process it, coming out and through whether I’m aware or not. Loss is such a varied experience… a death, a letting go, aging of ourselves or those we love, changes in our relationships, and how we feel and process loss is equally varied. Much of my process of making is about allowing these losses and changes to pass through without getting stuck or held, allowing things to be, move through, and holding space for something else to come in.

These paintings came about with no planning, not that I do much but I usually have some idea of a direction when I begin. They made me very uncomfortable, especially the ones that resemble nests with holes in them. Almost all of them I tucked away as soon as I finished them.

When I was thinking about showing them last year, I pulled everything out to see what I had. The nests still made me uncomfortable and I even tried to work back into one of them and it was a disaster. I just decided to clean them up, take the tape off the edges and pack them away. I set them all out together and began to work, feeling more comfortable with the idea that I was just doing this for myself, for my own process of grief, and that I didn’t have to show them to anyone. Over the next few days and weeks as I handled the paintings, cleaned and painted the edges and caught glimpses of them as I worked in the studio, I thought a lot about the people I loved who had died in the past couple of years, and then of others I have lost over time. Grief is tricky. So surprisingly sharp sometimes after it was nearly forgotten for a minute. I was worried that working with these paintings was going to make that grief feel very sharp again.

One of the things I love about painting with encaustic is the care of the surface of the finished painting. Because the paint is made mostly from beeswax, it is possible to buff the surface with a soft cloth periodically. Not only does it polish the surface but it brings out a depth and clarity to the layers and changes how the light reflects off the colors. As I polished each one, I was surprised at how comforted I felt by holding each piece, and how interested I was to see what details would be brought out in the process of rubbing the surface. What came through was not so dark and weird and uncomfortable as I had first thought. In fact, I felt very settled and calmed, and yes, grief was there too, but not sharp. I was missing those dear people but I was also remembering them, and often smiling as I remembered.

This Christmas as I looked again at these paintings and added some new ones to the series, I again felt the depth and richness of the experience of grief. And yes it is incredibly painful, but it is also an indicator or how resilient we are and of how intensely we have lived and loved during the short time we have.