I had the recent good fortune of seeing Natalie Edgar’s show Abstract Journey at Woodward Gallery in New York. Woodward Gallery was my first stop on a 2-day round of gallery visits in the city. Natalie’s show set the bar very high. You could feel the shimmering color vibrating all the way out on the street. The works have a delicate muscularity. The paintings feel lighter than air, but the expressive brush work grounds them. They are at once buoyant and anchored. I could hardly stop myself from leaping into them.

http://www.woodwardgallery.net/edgar.html

Island of Hydra, 2010, Oil on Canvas 46″ x 56″

Letter From Uccello #1, 2012, Oil on Canvas, 42″ x 56″

Letter From Uccello #1  (Detail)

Bentley with Watermark in the background

Watermark, 2012, Oil on Canvas, 46″ x 56″

Excursions, 2011, Oil on Canvas, 36″ x 42″

South Ferry, 2013, OIl on Canvas, 42″ x 55″

South Ferry (Detail)

Letter From Uccello #2, 2012, Oil on Canvas, 42″ x 56″

Paula Roland has a new exhibition, Navigating,  currently running alongside the 9th Encaustic Invitational at Conrad Wilde Gallery in Tucson.        Paula’s ethereal monotypes have their visual roots in her childhood on the Gulf of Mexico. There is something both loose, expansive and yet delicately structured in these prints. They seem to roll like the sea, and the way they are mounted off the walls heightens their sense of breath, in and out, like waves.

For more information about Paula and her work:

http://www.conradwildegallery.com/roland-9aei.html

http://www.paularoland.com

 View of the right wall. From left: Navigating Series: True North, Undertow and Uncharted

Paula Roland Navigating Series: Uncharted Encaustic Monotype 40″ x 20″

Paula Roland Navigating Series: True North Encaustic Monotype 40″ x 20″

Paula Roland From left: Navigating Series: You Are Here and True North 

Paula Roland Navigating Series: You Are Here Encaustic Monotype 40″ x 20″

From left: Paula Roland Navigating Series: Portal, Ocean at my Feet and Passage, Encaustic Monotype Collage, dimensions variable

The Encaustic Invitational at Conrad Wilde Gallery in Tucson, Arizona is an annual event that celebrates artworks created with encaustic, and the exhibition is always exquisitely orchestrated by gallery owner and curator Miles Conrad. Encaustic,  a mixture of beeswax, resin and pigment, is one of the world’s oldest fine art mediums and can be traced back to the ancient Greeks in the 5th century BC. The process of using encaustic is unique because it must be heated in order to activate it and make it fluid. Contemporary artists have embraced this ancient medium and there has been a wave of interest in its use in the last several decades. This 9th Encaustic Invitational is devoted to the encaustic print and the exhibition highlights the many ways in which artists create prints using these materials. There is also an exhibition highlighting new encaustic printwork from the artist Paula Roland running concurrently. A post on that exhibition will follow shortly.

Here is a link to more information about the gallery, the artists and their work.

http://www.conradwildegallery.com/encInv9.html

From left: Debra Blair, Deborah Martin, Donna Hamil Talman, Birgit Huttemann-Holz, Amelia Currier, Nanette Newbry and Larain Matheson

Debra Blair Outpost, 2011, Encaustic Monotype 19″ x 23″

Donna Hamil Talman Timeless the Flow, 2013, Encaustic, India Ink and Pastel on Kitakata, 37″ x 25″

Amelia Currier 35 Blooms 2, 2013, Encaustic Monotype 20″ x 26″

From left: Nanette Newbry, Larain Matheson, Karen Riley and Binnie Birstein

Binnie Birstein Untitled Black & White 10, 2014, Encaustic on Paper, 22″ x 16″

From left: Mari Marks, Pat Spainhour and Kay Hartung

Mari Marks Thoughts and Afterthoughts 4, 2011, Encaustic Monotype, 12″ x 18″

Pat Spainhour Ocular, 2013, Encaustic on Paper, 40″ x 26″

Kay Hartung Pathways 4, 2013, Encaustic Monotype, 9″ x 12″

From left: Pat Spainhour, Kay Hartung and Winston Lee Mascarenhas

Winston Lee Mascarenhas 105 Sonnets, 2014, Encaustic Monotypes on Thai Mulberry Papers, 24″ x 24″

Tracey Adams Imago 3, 2008, Encaustic Monotype and Encaustic on 5 panels, 11″ x 55″

From left: David A. Clark, Deborah Kapoor and Milisa Galazzi

David A. Clark Study for Relic #2, 2013, Encaustic Monoprint on Sakamoto Heavyweight 25.5″ x 38″

Deborah Kapoor Cloud Messenger 7, 2013, Deconstructed and transferred Monotypes with Encaustic on Wood, 12″ x 16″ x 1″

Milisa Galazzi Loose Ends 1, 2 & 3, 2013, Layered Encaustic Monotypes on Japanese Papers, 18″ x 15.5″

Milissa Galazzi Loose Ends 2 (Detail)

Elizabeth Harris If Such Things Are Possible, 2013, Encaustic on Kozo, 22″ x 17″

Eileen P. Goldenberg Circles 3, 2014, Rice Paper and Encaustic, 72″ x 18″