Copper Painting

This collection continues on the theme of 'Indecipherable Texts', which resonates with the proliferation of mass communication and the increasing elusiveness of effective direct communication in relation to difficult issues. Here the 'Indecipherable Text' relates to 'Peace'. The Hebrew and Arabic words for Peace, Shalom and Salaam, are derived from a root denoting wholeness or completeness. Its significance is thus not limited to the political domain - to the absence of war and enmity -or to the social- to the absence of quarrel and strife. It ranges over several spheres and can refer in different contexts to moral values, to cosmic principles and to divine attributes. My use of metallic foils represents these contexts. These artworks evoke both East and West, the Past and the New; they suggest ancient writing surfaces and modern technology, maps and journeys. The ancient technique of Encaustic painting is a hot wax method; using a highly personal and considered approach of construction in multiple layers and extending a technique still little known in this country and currently enjoying a revival in U.S.A. I am drawn to encaustic because of its translucency and 3-dimensional quality. It is a particularly robust medium and examples have come down to us from Antiquity. This multi layering also seems to correspond to the nature of 'Peace'; incorporating the past into the present and acknowledging all of its components. The price includes a white wood tray frame.