Restraint

Restraint is an outpouring of emotion. After a roughly 10-year hiatus, my reengagement with artmaking served as an outlet and a slight reprieve from the hopelessness I felt in my living arrangement at the time. While creating this series of artworks, it slowly became clear to me that all of the pent-up negativity (at last boiling over) was not exclusively a response to my current situation; it had – as it does for so many people – simmered inside me for a long time. Restraint presents beautiful facets of adult life darkened by ignorance, poor boundaries, and ineffective communication.  

By happy accident, the aesthetic qualities of this series parallel my path to better health. This body of work documents the frustrating and thrilling process of learning to manipulate a new medium. The very first piece in the series contains no encaustic at all, and the other early pieces are low relief, roughly textured, muddy, and visually busy; they are in large part explorations of the medium’s potential and how to gain control over it. As my skills develop, the pieces become larger, cleaner, more focused, and so high relief that they protrude significantly into the viewing space. In fact, the final piece is a sculpture, meant to be observed from all sides. This gradual refinement I was able to achieve in each subsequent piece coincides beautifully with the expansiveness and clarity I began to feel spiritually at the time. Although this body of work is titled, Restraint, it is also very much about resilience.