Lilis K'Dair

I have always enjoyed the challenge of capturing convincing likenesses, especially of people and natural objects rich in texture and movement. I am drawn to subjects that appear to be in transition or in a state of growth or decay. Curling leaves, opening flowers, flowing water, wrinkled skin, sweeping folds of tattered fabric, and cracks in glass are some of my favorite subject matter. I love drawing and painting objects that are bent, stretched, cracked, crumpled, and worn; that have been affected by a force of some kind and have undergone a change; that are suggestive of history and experience, as well as work and pain.

My drawings and encaustic work are often intense and a little dark. Although I find it thrilling to carefully observe and render my subject matter, my work always gives way here and there to painterly strokes and spatters or areas of less specificity. This creates a powerful visual impact I find irresistible. In my encaustic work, I often try to amplify the contrast between crisp naturalism and abstraction by fusing materials to the surface. These 3-dimensional protrusions of actual objects blur the distinction between what is real and what is illusion. The images have a sense of being trapped in their 2-dimensional surface, reaching out, trying to break free. I scrape, melt, and embed materials into the surface to help reveal and draw attention to the depth of the layered encaustic medium.

Thematically, I am interested in our necessity to strike a balance in our lives between comfort and discomfort. I am fascinated by the resilience of people who are living in uncomfortable circumstances, but are managing to find comfort in healthy ways. I am equally fascinated by the horrors people experience as a result of being too comfortable or by soothing their discomfort through self-destructive means. While I work, I often draw inspiration from cycles or waves and seek to unify seemingly disparate subject matter. My drawings and encaustics typically have an eerie, dreamlike quality, incorporating symbolic or metaphorical imagery. I love how this can limit and clarify while simultaneously extending the meaning of a piece. In my experience, this makes the art more accessible and invites interpretation from viewers who do not normally consider themselves art lovers. Through my drawings and encaustic work I explore the themes of weight vs. delicacy, pain vs. pleasure, clarity vs. confusion, and deterioration vs. growth.

My stained glass work has a much different look and feel, as the medium offers me something completely different. The finished pieces tend to be of a lighter, more subdued and decorative nature. Everything about them, start to finish, is cleaner and more controlled. The creative time and energy is expended up front as I carefully craft my composition and select the perfect glass for the piece. The many hours that follow are simply about execution. I no longer have creative decisions to make, I have only to make.

This level of preliminary planning, coupled with lengthy periods of mere execution, never appealed to me in the past but I yearn for it now as a mother of young children. There is control and order to it. It is tidy. As I work in stained glass I find I can gradually clear my head, rather than getting lost in the unpredictable process of repeatedly applying, burning-in, and responding to encaustic, or in engaging in the slow, often frustrating buildup of forms in drawing or painting. Working with glass is a spiritual, meditative practice, allowing me to enjoy being fully present with the physicality of the processes and materials. I love the many textures of the glass, the weight of it, the colors, and the act of cutting, breaking and grinding it to its exact shapes. It is an active, physical process – similar to that of encaustic – but a painstaking process that requires a level of planning, focus, attention to detail, and precision that I am finding appealing in this season of my life. I can become absorbed in it, but not mentally drained.

I consider an artwork finished when, as I step back from it, I feel a rush of excitement and simply stop and stare. After a long creative process full of decisive cracking, burning, or smudging, I suddenly find I am handling the work very delicately or am hesitant to touch it at all – as though it is a living creature, a baby. It has finally become the slow read I desired, something I want to be with for a while. It is texturally striking, full of intention, with a sense of movement and a nice play between vibrant colors and neutrals.

My favorite pieces are what I like to call “subtly dark” and they address more existential themes. When finished, they are lovely enough to draw viewers in and hold their attention even as difficult feelings may be conjured up for the viewer. A fellow undergrad student once said my artwork “allows people to be with pain.” My work offers opportunities to settle in and get curious about emotions like fear, grief, rage, contempt, and desperation – feelings that can arise and consume us quite naturally out of the mere monotony of daily life and all the stories we tell ourselves. It invites us to approach these difficult emotions in an accepting way; without a desire to avoid them, without a sense of urgency or hopelessness, but with the calm of knowing that they are inevitable, necessary, and temporary. The cycles and transitions present in my artwork remind us that everything is in flux, and that something beautiful – like curiosity, clarity, or even tranquility – could soon follow. My hope is to inspire in viewers a grounded passion for life and a desire to connect with others. I hope to perpetuate messages around courage, resilience, acceptance, compassion, and gratitude.