Amanda Englert
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I grew up in southwestern Ohio and have worked variously as a teacher in Mozambique, a new and used car salesman, and a hard-hatted laborer in an electro-coating factory. I earned my BA/MA in Anthropology and African Studies from the University of Chicago and currently work/play as a free-range childcare provider and artist. In summers I run a small art camp for children out of my home, focusing - as in my own work – on the use of found objects, recyclables, and salvage. The camp culminates in a supersonic art show and gala extravaganza, in which the children set up their own exhibit showcasing everything from upcycled bottle ‘stained’ glass and slingshot/catapult paintings to astounding works of claymation and runway fashion. Their works often take on collaborative and even conspiratorial tones, and there is no end to the creative possibilities inherent in a tribe of little humans unhindered by a consciousness of line quality and color theory, let alone criticism and judgment. Children tend to make pancakes like they are making art, and make art like they are making pancakes. It is a spirit I try to maintain.
Areas of exploration include fiction, painting, and sculpture – which intersect in my current obsession with the encaustic medium. It lends itself well to narrative and the project of memory, and smells good too.
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Short Statement:
From the Greek “to burn in”, encaustic is a process of melting beeswax and applying it to a porous surface, heat-setting each layer to fuse them together. It was first developed in the 5th century BC, when the Greeks used hot wax to fill cracks in their ships. The addition of pigment gave way to the decoration of warships, as described in “The Iliad” when Homer speaks of the “painted ships” of the Greek fleet. Wax is an excellent preservative, completely impervious to moisture, and does not yellow or fade with age. It was as ideal in desert climes as at sea - the best known ancient encaustic works are probably the Fayum funeral potraits done by Greek painters in Egypt around 100-300 AD.
I find encaustic an ideal medium for exploring questions of memory. Although stable unless exposed to extreme heat, encaustic remains indefinitely workable. One can always add or subtract, scrape or melt, clarify or distort. It can be etched, collaged, sculpted, textured, inlayed, used on its own or with oil-based media. Like memory, objects and images can be buried, superimposed, scratched away, embedded, embellished, polished to luminescence or fogged into oblivion.
Wax lends itself well to shiny contradictions. It is a supremely natural substance, made from the same tiny, vulnerable creatures that create honey. Yet it has been commandeered to win violent sea battles, enshrine the dead, immortalize the living, illuminate, polish, and protect. To render us hairless and edify our mustache. Encaustic can render an image both timeless and ethereal. It lasts forever - yet even when new, it smells of age.
The work I present here is composed mainly of photographs and found objects on salvaged wood. Like wax, wood is another purely natural thing that feels strange to waste and perverse to throw away. The wood used comes primarily from alleys, old drawers, and remnants of other people’s projects. The distortion of memory was helped along by the serendipitous fact of my printer no longer being capable of printing in black. The other colors are faithful to the image but black translates to blank – a reminder to regard the surface simply as something else to look through.
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Amanda Englert has participated in the following Op Shops:
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