Natural Dye Relics
A flow of ancient memory;
unearthed,
remote, fragmented, and patinaed with the past;
the distance of another time.
Natural Dye Relics serves as a souvenir that encapsulates either a glimpse of time, or a memory tied to place. Each object holds unique natural formations, textures and a palette dyed by natural dyes or native plants from the Midwest. These artifacts are dyed, painted, layered, and scraped away to uncover what remains.
In this way, I integrate many components into process, by first gathering natural dye pigments, then capturing unique abstractions via an intuitive dyeing process in which I manipulate color with encaustic medium, and damar tree resin. I view working with encaustic materials and natural dyes as a way to directly interact with the landscape, whereby the paintings become a marker of the land, and an artifact of experience.