9. Encaustic and oil stick on illustration board

Expansion
90x90mm

8. Incised encaustic with oil paint

Sundial
Incised encaustic with oil paint

7. Encaustic with oil paint

Timepiece
Incised encaustic with oil paint and graphite on illustration board 

6. Impressed image with Verdigris patina

5. Computer Residuum 2
Verdigris on acrylic emulsion on illustration board

My Studio Gallery is officially open

5. Encaustic and oil stick on board

'Computer Residuum'

3 and 4. Verdigris on letterpress

 

     Acrylic emulsion, letterpress and verdigris on mixed media board

The font is 30pt Jenolan, printed with a galley proof press. 

1. and 2. Residuum: What remains

 

Encaustic with letterpress

I'm currently working on a series of small - 9cm square - encaustic and mixed media works that will later become components of larger works.  The small scale is ideal for experimenting with combinations of media such as encaustic painting, oil paint, metal oxides, letterpress, intaglio printing, solar plate, monotype, cyanotype and collage of darkroom and digital photography.  My aim is to complete an average of one work a day, though each work will take several days to make and reflect upon.  I plan to post them on my blog as I go.  Here are the first two.

Encaustic and letterpress with oil stick

Inspiration came from a series of poems called De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things) written by the Roman philosopher poet, Lucretius, in c60BCE.  His writings were based on the ideas of Epicurius 500 years before that.  The quotes are from a translation of his poems.

             

Opening of Inextricably Related: New Encaustic Works by Raemon Rolfe

Inextricably Related: New work by Raemon Rolfe

Underlying ideas:

Our connectedness to all that is and the continuing search for knowledge about the nature of the universe are concepts that continue to enthral me.To introduce my artist’s statement for the 2012 show From the Tide Pool to the Stars I used a quotation from John Steinbeck’s Log from the Sea of Cortez, in which he makes the point that we are ‘related to all reality, known and unknowable ... plankton, a shimmering phosphorescence on the sea and the spinning planets and an expanding universe, all bound together by the elastic string of time’. 

That Earth and we ourselves are made of ‘stardust’ – or less romantically, the ‘nuclear waste’(*1) – from stars that exploded in the early universe, is an awe-inspiring truth.  Also inspiring is the fact that the deep forces that shape the universe should be perfectly calibrated to have resulted in at least one planet favourable for the evolution of a complex life form capable of asking questions about its own extra-terrestrial origins, and whether or not life forms have evolved independently elsewhere in the universe.  Modern technology is allowing us to expand our horizons in space and time as we venture beyond our solar system into unknown regions to gather data and images and bring back samples for analysis.

The Latin term terra incognita meaning ‘unknown land’ was first used as a concept during the Age of Exploration in the mid fifteenth century lasting through to the nineteenth century.  Latin, the 
language of knowledge at the time revealed exploration as a search for knowledge.  The starting point was a map indicating where to find the unknown.  A dragon was sometimes drawn in and the words ‘here be dragons’ or in Latin hic sunt dracones may be written on the unknown region to emphasise ‘the fear and intrigue induced by the unknown as well as its presence as
a threat to knowledge, rationality, and authority.’(*2)  Voyages of exploration were then embarked upon, maps refined, samples brought home and claims made. 

The current ‘Age of Exploration’ into unknown regions of deep space must bring with it threats similar to those of the voyages of exploration of earlier ages.

*1. M. Rees  Just Six Numbers: The Deep Forces that shape the Universe  1999 (p58)

*2. D. Buisseret The Oxford companion to World Exploration, Volume 1.  2007 (p25)

Push-Pull:Open Universe
2013, 

Encaustic painting shares with oil painting the qualities of luminosity and depth but has a richer materiality. I first exhibited encaustic works in 2012 and have continued to explore this medium in the current series but with increased colour and texture.

The word encaustic comes from the Ancient Greek word 
enkaustikos meaning ‘to heat’ or ‘to burn in’.  They used hot wax to fill cracks in their ships, soon pigment was added and this led to decorative painting on the surface of the waxed hull.  In Greco-Roman Egypt encaustic was widely used to paint mummy portraits.  After waning in popularity for hundreds of years encaustic became of interest again to a few painters in the 19^th and early 20^th centuries, but it was Jasper Johns in the 1950s that elevated the prominence of the medium with his encaustic collages.  Since the 1990s encaustic painting has entered a new wave of popularity.

Just a Bubble Floating in the Metaverse  

Media and Techniques
To make encaustic medium I melt beeswax with a little natural resin to harden it then filter and cool it in small blocks.  When ready to paint I melt a block of medium, add pigment (colour) and keep the resulting encaustic paint molten in a tin on my electric fry pan.  I apply paint using quick strokes to a wood panel laid horizontally so the molten wax doesn’t run, then fuse or ‘burn in’ each layer with a hot air gun.  The texture left by the instantly drying brush strokes can be retained or can be smoothed by scraping or melting.  The surface can be incised, carved, stenciled on and worked into with other media such as wax-based oil sticks, which are then heated and fused into the wax surface, shellac, graphite and metal patinas such as verdigris and rust.  Collage elements can be incorporated in the wax layers.

I made the wax castings included in some of the works by pouring molten encaustic medium into molds formed by pressing found objects such as shells, a computer logic board, and objects I first modeled from plasticine into soft clay. 
  
Encaustic is the most durable and beautiful of all artists' paints, it can be buffed to a rich sheen and the paintings do not have to be varnished or protected by glass because encaustic is its own protector. 

See below images of the works exhibited.  They are numbered as in the exhibition catalogue.  All are encaustic on board.

1. Star Dust No.1   (with rust and cast wax shells)   2013  250x200mm  SOLD

       2.  Star Dust No.2  (with rust, 3 cast wax shell fragments)
2013   250x200mm     

3.   Permitted Zone No.1 (with copper and cast wax shells) 
2013     250x200mm   SOLD    

4. Permitted Zone No.2 (with copper and cast wax shells)
2013     250x200mm       SOLD

5.  Terra Incognita No.1 (with rust and cast wax shells)
2013     250x200mm           SOLD

6.  Terra Incognita No.2 (with cast wax scallop shell)
2013   250x200mm   (Framed)   SOLD

7.   Terra Incognita No.3 (with castings from logic board)
2013   250x200mm   (Framed)   SOLD

8.  Terra Incognita No.4 (with logic board casting)
     2013   250x200mm    (Framed)    SOLD    

9. Terra Incognita No.5 (with logic board castings, verdigris)
  2013  250x200mm    (framed)      SOLD

10.  Terra Incognita No.6 (2 cast wax costrels and rock)
2013    250x200mm       (Framed)     $250

11.  Terra Incognita No.7 (cast wax costrels, gold leaf)
2013    250x200mm       (Framed)     SOLD

12.   Terra Incognita No.8 ( cast wax costless)
 2013    250x200mm      (Framed)      SOLD    

13.   Deep Forces: N (Red star)   2013  
300x300mm   250x250mm      (Framed)       SOLD    

14.  Deep Forces: Omega (Dark and light matter)
  2013   250x250mm   (Framed)  SOLD

15.  Deep Forces: Lambda (Expansion) 
   2013   250x250mm      Framed     SOLD    

16.  Deep Forces: Q (Galaxy forming)
2013     250x250mm      (Framed)     SOLD    

17.   Deep Forces: e (The elements)
2013     250x250mm     (Framed)   SOLD    

18.   Deep Forces: Q (Quantum Fluctuations)
2013   250x250mm      (Framed)   $295    

19.   Deep Forces: D (Three dimensions)
2013    250x250mm     (Framed)     SOLD    

20.   Deep Forces: D (with collage and dodecahedron)
2013     250x250 mm     (Framed)    $295    

21.    Deep Forces: D (3 With pyramid)
2013     250x250mm      (Framed)    $295

22.   Just a bubble floating through the Metaverse    No.12014     250x250      (Framed)   SOLD

23.   Just a bubble floating through the Metaverse No.2 (Mountains) 
2014     250x250mm       (Framed)   $295

24.   Just bubbles floating through the Metaverse
2014     250x250mm      (Framed)         $295

25.  Push/Pull:  A closed universe 
 2013    400x200m       $300

26.   Push/Pull:  A flat universe 
2013      400x200mm       $300

27.   Push/Pull:  an open universe 
2013     400x200mm         $300

28.   Residuum No. 1   (Cast encaustic medium, pigments, metal patina)
2014      250x250m             SOLD

29.   Residuum No.2   (Cast encaustic medium, pigment, metal patinas)
2014      250x250mm      SOLD

30.   Residuum No.3: Sun, Man, Molecule 
(Cast encaustic, pigment, metals, graphite)   2014      250x250mm         SOLD

31.  Residuum No.4:  Inextricably Related   (Cast encaustic, pigment, metals, graphite)   2014     250x250mm    $350