Encaustic
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Stephanie Hargrave’s work is influenced by the architecture of natural structures; pods, seeds, blooms, olives, cells, petals, spines and husks. There is a direct correlation between her subject matter and materials, as pure bee’s wax, resin and pigments are heated, layered and fused with a torch. Her paintings and sculptural forms are abstractions of organic forms, painted free-hand from imagination. Much of the line work is created by inlaying pigmented wax into carved lines and burnishing in ‘draw-through’ prints on tissue to add texture and different line weights. She approaches each piece without a pre-conceived idea of what it will look like – instead, she lets the piece grow naturally through the process of layering and decision making, adding and eliminating, receding portions and creating new imagery that often hovers above images of previous layers. Hargrave has been both painting and working in clay since college, where she studied color theory, ceramics, sculpture, drawing and painting. She started a line of functional ceramics as a small business in 1997 after studying with Carol Gouthro, and has worked with metal, oil paint, and acrylic paint over the years, but her medium of choice is bee’s wax. She learned a great deal studying with Jef Gunn and Larry Caulkins at Pratt Fine Arts Center, and has been focusing exclusively on encaustics for the past 9 years. It is the one medium that affords all the other materials she has worked in to overlap and inform one another. “I find bee’s wax to be inherently lovely, and work with it always mindful of how its natural beauty and transparency can coexist with my ideas and imagery.” Hargrave currently shows her work in Seattle, Minneapolis, Atlanta, and Mobile.
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Sculptural Collage Weekend Workshop
March 27, 2012 at 9:50 pm (UTC 0)
[...] Instructors: Stephanie Hargrave & Rickie Wolfe [...]
150 Feet of Art: Our Annual Auction
March 29, 2012 at 12:18 am (UTC 0)
[...] are thrilled to announce that our juror is Seattle artist Stephanie Hargrave. Stephanie is an instructor for us and Pratt Fine Arts Center, and holds workshops in her West [...]