Circularity

By Deborah Winiarski

With no beginning and no end, the circle represents – across time and cultures – perfection, inclusion, wholeness, the Self, harmony, the infinite. The circle protects and unites, confining what’s within and keeping out the unwanted. The circle and the curve imply movement – the planets’ journeys around the sun, the cycles of life and the seasons, the perpetual motion and energy of all that moves, the rhythm of the universe.  It is no wonder that, over the centuries and around the globe, humankind, in its search for the spiritual, has included circles and curvilinear forms in created objects, icons, architecture and art.

Fanne Fernow

Fanne Fernow, Nimbus 30: You're Killing Me, 2015, encaustic on panel, 12 x 12 inches

“My work is prayer and meditation.  I use copious dots to honor the holiness I see in the world. I love mantras, repetition of sounds, images, ideas that become larger and more important with each glance.  It is prayer with a backbeat.”

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Ruth Hiller

Ruth Hiller, intersection, 2015, pigmented beeswax on panels, 24 x 42 inches

“Having been schooled in a rigorously minimalist fashion, I am driven to create “outside of the standard straight edged box”. Soft Geometry juxtaposes my interest in geometry and my desire to deconstruct strict parameters. I search for the curved intersection of nature and geometry through my use of materials and shapes.”

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Nancy Ferro

Nancy Ferro, Greenpiece, 2013; found papers, found objects, graphite and beeswax on wood; 22 x 22 inches

“My favorite quotation is a fragment written by Isaac Bashevis Singer, ‘...the patterns of continuous creation.’ Using a variety of both found and common materials, I draw from the past to create the present. This juxtaposition of past and present, both visual and conceptual, is at the essence of my work.”

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Binnie Birstein

Binnie Birstein, What Lies Beneath: pool, 2012; encaustic and india ink on panel; 48 x 36 inches. Photo: Patrick Vingo

“Mixing and combining opposites, playing with analogies and ambiguity, I create a distorted mix of reality, imagination, and space. My work is dark, ambiguous, and dream-like. Feelings of dissonance with a sense of mystery and unease prevail. What Lies Beneath is a series of work all about energy and spatial ambiguity.”

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Amy Ellingson

Amy Ellingson, Variation: blue, 2014; oil and encaustic on two panels; 78 x 72 inches.

Photo: John Janca/Artbot Photography

“My work is an attempt to confront the enormity of contemporary virtual experience while asserting the traditional, historic, human activity of painting. Using ephemeral, computer-generated images exclusively as my source material, I create paintings that physically assert themselves through the materiality and permanence of historical painting media.”

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Lynda Ray

Lynda Ray, Turntable, 2016, encaustic on panel, 12 x 12 inches

“My paintings are containers of time with overlapping transparent layers of color forming a whole. Organic, geometric shapes and space vie for dominance. My process sometimes produces unexpected contours like the curve of the macrocosm, which is bent by mass and energy.”

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Deborah Kapoor

Deborah Kapoor, Bloodlines, 2015; encaustic prints on paper mounted to wood circles;

20 x 7 x 3 inches

“I am interested in the connection between nature and the body. In the Slash and Burn series, I consider the process of transformation from one state to another, as it relates to temporal metaphors of geological forms and human emotions.”

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Corina S. Alvarezdelugo

Corina S. Alvarezdelugo, Introspectus, 2015; cast encaustic, artist-made paper, and mixed media on found object; 12 inches in diameter x 10 inches deep. Photo: Christopher Gardner

“While working on this recent series, I imagined myself detached from existence, self-reflecting on what was happening around me. I found myself questioning my future path. I foresaw changes. During this time of introspection and repair, rehabilitation happened as the work evolved.”

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