Gravitating Toward Glaciers

Educational

Feb 28

Aerial and satellite photography have become increased sources of visual inspiration for my work and Instagram has played a large role in that. I follow some of my favorites and am always discovering more. I encourage you to follow me to see even more progress. My IGTV channel allows you to a peek into my day to day.

The image on the right below is by Munich based photographer Tom Hegen, whose Instagram is mind blowing. The image on the left was taken from the International Space Station by astronaut Don Pettit. I love getting to see these images on a daily basis in my Instagram feed. I am so appreciative to the many of you who have reached out with links or images that remind you of my paintings. Thank you for all the added musings and for thinking of me.

Tributary Meridian Elise Wagner Abstract Water Ice — Tributary Meridian, 30” x 48” inches, encaustic paint and oil on panel, Elise Wagner

Other resources that have contributed to this body of work are subscriptions to Atlas Obscura and the Artsy newsletter which is where I found both of the below images. I highly recommend both as resources for art world updates and all things curious and amazing to see and read about. I found this article Greenland is Melting by Elizabeth Kolbert in the New Yorker and it's accompanying image, so compelling that I drew it and made a series of large paintings inspired by it. Climate change is something that impacts us all and one of my top concerns in the world. The article was very timely as I had just completed a series of small works addressing the receding glaciers. That and Kolbert's book, Field Notes from a Catastrophe gave me a deeper understanding of the crisis that our planet is in.

Two underlying ideas that have always dwelled in my creative consciousness and have motivated me to continue creating art, are the human impulse for order amidst the indifference of nature, and how we as humans have impacted nature and the environment.

During a rare winter ice storm while walking my dog, I was absolutely astonished to see the image in this ice months after I created the above piece, one in a fifteen piece series.

Below is a video of the making of one from my Glacier series. You can see more by subscribing to my YouTube Channel

Last Summer, I made graphite rubbings of the texture of my large series of dyptychs; Pluto Atlas and transferred them onto a warm cobalt turquoise wax surface. There are twelve of these each are 11" x 9" and three more that are 12" x 12". The Greenland is Melting article came soon after these were completed.

This book Salt Pans: Little Rann of Kutch, Gujarat, India are aerial photographs of the salt mines in India. The scorched earth that results from draining this resource is incomprehensibly beautiful, each photo is an abstract painting, you almost cannot believe your eyes. I most recently watched Burtynsky's film Manufactured Landscapes which I highly recommend.

Edward Burtynsky

I discovered the photographic and film work of Edward Burtynsky through an article in the New Yorker Magazine: Edward Burtynsky's Epic Landscapes and, another in a later issue about his book publisher entitled Gerhard Steidl is Making Books an Art Form.

This so deeply resonated with the underlying motivations of my own work that I immediately felt compelled to create a limited edition of prints on Kozo paper. I mounted them onto panels and created 6 paintings that will also be in my solo exhibit at Butters Gallery.

Building the collagraph plate from International Space Station photos and the Salt Pans. Right is my new tjanting tool, a common batik tool. The reservoir is filled with wax for drawing lines.

The first print on Kozo paper. The second print done on top of another collagraph print. Prints awaiting panels. Yay panels! Cover the panels with a layer of wax and mount the prints. Cover with a layer of wax.