Cherry Rohe - encaustic painter

Artist Statement:

What I choose to paint
Most of 2009 was devoted to the body of work Throw Away Mentality which depicts details of discarded objects that are dumped into the arroyos of Northern New Mexico. These images exemplify that there is potential beauty and value in everyone and most things. It is not what we keep but what we throw away that reveals our societies' priority system.

Recent travels have inspired a new body of work Many Cultures, One Humanity which celebrates the differences and the sameness of all peoples throughout the world.

The distortion of reality in still or flowing water fascinates me. A one person show entitled Heat Wave will explore how water and wax, though noncompatible elements, can represent the reflectancy, depth, and transparency of water found in nature, our most essential resource.

Why encaustic painting?
Painting with pigmented hot wax allows me to scrape away at the layers of history revealing what lies beneath. Each layer of wax represents an archeology of place. Encaustic painting is a process of revealing an inner beauty formed by layers and layers of paint.

It is also a medium that cannot be totally controlled. When hot wax mysteriously melds together it forms a union of surface that can never be separated into individual units again. To me this represents the joining of souls for one purpose. Encaustic wax also has a dimensional quality that can turn flat work into textural, sculptural paintings that reflect light, has transparent depth and a purity of shade and shadow.