In our October issue we showcased eight Maine encaustic artists. Here we feature one more—Peaks Island artist Diane Wiencke. Her work is yet another example of how complex and beautiful this timeless art form can be.
Diane Wiencke
Artist's Statement
Often I dream about painting. I can only explain it to say that I am compelled. It is not an idea or a vision of outcome but rather the process which fuels this drive. My paintings begin with these ingredients: words, numbers, paints and wax encaustic piled high and scraped down. Layered again and again.
A thick surface of paint and wax provide a soft ground for etching in text, simple mark making, drawing. A network of circuitry develops exposing broken bits of longitude and latitude. Thin layers of glazed color provide depth within illusionistic space and tension between declarative flatness of opaque color. The palette is soft, yet rich in hue.
Often during the act of painting, images present themselves as recognizable influence in subject. It is my attempt with PROXEMIC VARIATION to soften the obvious until it merely suggests. This group of paintings involves the development of relationships between simple elements within atmospheric conditions. Gravity. I still think of myself as humbly painting away, getting closer and closer and further and further from where I began.
The paintings are themselves reflections of a process, however arduous, as beauty does not consist of the exactitude of obeying rules. Rather, it resides in a thousand secret harmonies.