Monica Wilson

I never thought you could paint with fire.

Encaustic painting is essentially painting with molten beeswax, combined with a little tree sap (damar resin) and pigment. I create my own encaustic medium, mixing different colors in little tins, which are kept hot on a griddle. I apply layer after layer of encaustic medium to a wood panel, and each layer is fused with a blowtorch. The blowtorch also moves the medium around the panel, which gives my paintings soft, flowy movement.

Encaustic painting is unpredictable and messy – like life. The medium I use starts off as solid blocks of beeswax and resin, which is melted using a hotplate, to which pigments are added. This molten wax is painted onto a wood panel, and a blowtorch is used to create ebbs and flows with the wax medium – which can mimic the ebbs and flows of life. The outcome is usually not what was originally mapped out, but nevertheless, is beautiful and unique. No two paintings can ever be the same.