ERIC HESSE on working in ENCAUSTIC
The term ‘encaustic’ is used liberally in describing any surface texture but true encaustic is a complex medium dating back to the 1st Century AD consisting of heated beeswax, resin, and pigment applied to a prepared surface. Eric Hesse has a masterful control of the notoriously difficult medium, honed over decades of experience. The use of this historic medium to explore highly contemporary industrial forms has become a hallmark of the artist's work. Billboards, power lines, concrete walls, and freeway underpasses have all become the basis of exquisite paintings coaxed out of temperamental wax.
Eric Hesse began using encaustic when he was a teenager, and was immediately intimidated by the lack of control he could wield over the paint. He describes it as feeling like playing three dimensional chess. The luminous, stereoscopic quality of the paint proved captivating and encaustic came to be his primary medium for the very reason he originally found it so confounding: it resists capture and control. As Hesse grew more facile with the wax, he realized its attributes correlated to the primary themes developing in his work: limitations and allowances.
What is ENCAUSTIC?
Encaustic is the most ancient and durable painting medium known to humanity. Part of this is due to its simplicity — it is made of beeswax and pigment. A resin from trees in southeast Asia called damar is often added to harden the wax, but these three elements act as a preservative upon the surface on which the paint is applied. Some of the oldest surviving paintings are the Fayum Portraits, completed by Romans in ancient Egypt in the late 1st Century BC. They remain stunningly vibrant more than two millennia later.
The paint is applied molten and hardens instantly, so there is no drying time. After cooling, the paint is then manipulated with a variety of tools including razors, dental tools, or a torch.
What is the SUPPORT?
EH: Since wax will flake off of a flexible surface, encaustic must be applied to a rigid substrate. I use plywood panels for their stability. Sometimes I paint on raw wood, sometimes a surface prepared with gesso. Since the wax will not adhere to plastic, the use of contemporary pre-made acrylic gesso is not possible. Instead I use a recipe dating back to the renaissance. A mix of marble dust, calcium carbonate, and glue are heated in a double boiler and 6-8 coats are applied to the panel prior to painting.
How is the PAINT made?
EH: For most of my career, I’ve made my own paint, grinding powdered pigments into molten encaustic medium (refined beeswax and damar). Once mixed, I pour the paint into muffin tins where it cools into disks.
How is the paint MANIPULATED on the support?
EH: Once the paint leaves the hot palette, it cools and hardens almost instantly. I extend the paint’s pliability by aiming a heat gun at my brush while I apply paint to the panel. This allows for more fluid line-making or mixing colors on the painting’s surface.
However, layers build up quickly, so other tools are employed to manipulate the 3D paint: I use razors to scrape down and smooth the surface. The scraps from this process I call ‘tailings’ which are set aside and used later to add random elements to my pictures. Nothing goes to waste. Dental tools are used to carve into the wax surface, the indentation eventually filled with more melted wax and pigment. An iron is used to blend the surface colors.
The final step in the painting process is fusing layers of paint to each other with a heat gun or torch. It is from this last manipulation that encaustic gets its name, which is derived from the ancient Greek word ‘Enkaustickos’ which means to ‘burn in’. No final varnish or covering layer is needed. Only a light polish with a cotton or silk rag every is necessary to keep the surface clean and luminous.
When it cools, I pop the cakes out of the forms and use them like tubes of paint, melting and mixing them on a hot electric griddle. Recently, I’ve been experimenting with professionally made encaustic paints. The company who manufactures these paints, R&F Handmade Paints, invited me to work at their facility in upstate New York earlier this year. The residency included the chance to experience with their encaustics. The intensity of pigment concentration in the paint is unachievable in my home-made paint, so I am now incorporating these colors in with my own.
