Mixed Media Encaustics

Releasing a Great Yearning, 3x4ft,  2022

This is an image I shot of a friend back in 1989 on the Malibu beach when I was living in Los Angeles. I decided to revisit the image by blowing it up large and embedding it in wax, allowing another painting below to peak through.

Rebirth, 12x12 inches, 2022

This image was from my series titled, "Passages". The piece combines photography, fabric and organic elements from my yard.

 

Allia Potestas

Allia Potestas, 2011

Once powerful rulers and thinkers have often been erased from history through the destruction of representations of them in artwork, and text. In ancient Rome this was called, Damnatio Memoriae, (damnation of memory). Sculpted portraits of leaders were systematically obliterated. This was the case of Hatshepsut, an Egyptian Queen and a myriad of others. How many women have been erased from history? 

In the summer of 2010, while studying ancient art and archeology in Rome, a eulogy on a tombstone at the Epigraphic Museum spoke to me - a rare portrait of a woman, Allia Potestas. This Latin eulogy describes a common woman in loving terms, a rather unusual example, in public documents. She was a former slave and weaver, a woman who lived with two men, her lovers, one of whom commissioned the tombstone. As I heard the text translated, an image started to form in my mind, the impetus for a project.

Throughout the ancient world, women are mere traces in the annals of history. Blurry, hazy, smudged - indistinct figures whose names are the only remains if that. According to most historical documents, women have scarcely contributed to the development of society and culture. To this day, in many places throughout the world, women are not acknowledged as significant contributors.

I painted this portrait in 2011 using a friend as a model. Recently, this friend passed away much too young, like Allia Potestas, which has made me think that I should revisit a project I started 10 years ago. 

Sepulchral Inscription for Allia Potestas (1-4th cnetury CE)

Encaustic Workshop

Hillary working on an encaustic painting.

Lost Techniques of the Ancients-Encaustic Painting Workshop

Over 2000 years ago, encaustic painting was quite pervasive in the ancient world. From what we know, the ancient Greeks first practiced painting with wax and pigments. Most notably, encaustics were used to decorate mummies in ancient Egypt, marble sculptures and tombs, ancestor busts and ships during the Roman Empire. Artists have dabbled with encaustics through the centuries, most notably the  American painter, Jasper Johns, but it wasn’t until about 25 years ago that there was a resurgence in encaustics. Today, there are numerous contemporary artists working with wax. In this two day workshop you will learn about the history of this technique and get to experiment with different processes to create one or more contemporary pieces. 

Location: Sonoma Academy Art Room Veranda

Workshop Dates:

Saturday, June 12 / 9:30am - 4:30pm

Sunday, June 13 / 9:30-4:30

$460 (supplies included) To sign up, send an email to Hillary at hillary.younglove@sonomaacademy.org

Skill level: beginning to advanced

Lost Techniques of the Ancients/Textbook

Encaustic Workshop Schedule

Day 1

Introductions

Slides of participants work

Discussion of encaustic method and safety measures

Slide Presentation: Historical Uses of Encaustic

Discussion about supports and surfaces and preparing materials

Fusing Demonstration, demonstration of working with charcoal and pastels.

Demo on working with photos and transfers.

Individual Work time

Day 2

Slide presentation of contemporary artists working with encaustic

Demo of line and edge, demo of adhering collage materials with wax.

Demonstration of combining oil paint with encaustic

Demo on building texture

Individual Work time

You will leave the workshop with one or two pieces and knowledge of:

• The History of Encaustic

• Safety Precautions

• Layering

• Creating texture

• Fusing

• Incising

• Scraping

• Combining Pigments

• Collage

• Working with transfers

Instructor Bio

Since 1996, Hillary Younglove has been working with encaustics in painting and sculpture. In 2010, Hillary received a Fulbright to study the classics at the American Academy in Rome, deepening her knowledge of ancient techniques, which led to the development of the course, “Lost Techniques of the Ancients”. The course that is being offered is an adaptation of the class she teaches at Sonoma Academy where she is head of the arts program. In addition to teaching at Sonoma Academy, Hillary has taught for several years at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, Berkeley and UC Santa Barbara extension classes. Her work has been shown both nationally and internationally. Published work includes: the New York Times, Atlantic Records, Essence Magazine, Corriere della Serra, Random House, Barnes & Noble Publishing, Warner Brothers Records and numerous other publications.

Hillary has a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, and an MA from New York University.

Passages Workshop

Working from personal history and ancestry, students created individual mixed media pieces. Some dealt with family legacy, the passing of a loved one and the relationship between mother and daughter.

It was nice to spend time making art with people even though we were 6ft. apart and wearing masks for two days! 

Passages

Two years in the making or should I say 37? That's how long I've been writing letters. Journaling since the age of 12. Passages is a project that developed from an idea my best friend and I had back in the early 1990's of doing an art project together with our correspondence.

At age 53, after the Santa Rosa fires, I felt a need to create works of art that incorporated boxes of  ephemera I'd been collecting for so many years. As I re-read letters some 20 or 30 years after receiving them, I was flooded with memories and images, yet they seemed to belong to someone else. I felt removed, as if I were exploring the life of another person.

As a young woman, I felt so different than everyone else around me. As I grow older, I see how all of our lives are so universal. We experience so many of the same thoughts and feelings. I had envisioned, "Passages" to be shown in the month of May and June when my students graduate from high school. I wanted them to reflect on the stage they are at and the passages they are embarking on. Though I have used personal items to create the works of art in the show, this exhibit is not about my past but about a universal past.

First feelings of desire, longing, love, the physical pain of a broken heart. All of the insecurities about fitting in, about career and finding oneself. The search for happiness and belonging. Observations about people and places. Books read, movies watched, experiences.

I hope that some people will be able to visit the actual exhibit and experience the artwork in person during this pandemic. A soundscape of music and voices will accompany the exhibit if there is an opening. Every abstract work of art is layered with years of stories which cannot be captured in a video.

As you take this virtual tour, I hope you get a sense of your own passage through life.

Here is a book of the exhibit.

Passages

By Hillary Younglove

Passages

By Hillary Younglove

Don't Throw Out Anything! It Can All Be Recycled.

Samurai Revisited, 24x24, 2020

Over the past few years I've been taking paintings that are collecting dust in my garage and giving them new life. They add a rich layer to my new work. Instead of destroying pieces I don't like, I sand them down or use them as a base layer for a new work of art. I love knowing that there is a history or back story to each piece that only I know about. This particular painting was once a samurai. I kept the color palette and added pages from a 19th century Japanese book on Kabuki theater along with fabric and new painted elements.

Passages

Tête-à-Tête

                   Mixed Media, 24x30, 2019

It's been a long time since I last posted because I've been posting all my new work on Instagram. For the last two summers I've been working on a series entitled, "Passages". This series uses old letters, journal entries, photos and encaustic. I used to treasure all of the items used in my new body of work. Today I see everything as ephemeral. As a young artist I would never have felt the urge to share or use these personal items in a work of art, let alone do an entire project on the subject of the passages of my life. Today I feel so detached from it all. The person who wrote the letters and journal entries was a much younger Hillary. I used to see myself as such an individual, now I see that I am just like everyone else with the same hopes, desires and fears. 

Synapse

Mixed Media on board, 18x24, 2018

For 30 years my best friend and I talked about doing an art project with our correspondence. In the summer of 2018 the timing felt right. The boxes of letters had survived the Santa Rosa fires which had come within a seven minute walk from my house. Some of my paintings burned with the homes that were lost. The gallery I was showing all of my latest work in came within a block of burning down. Awareness of how close I had come to losing everything, as some of my friends and students, had made me want to use the letters and journals that had traversed the Atlantic and US several times over in my artwork. I spent the summer re-reading things I had not perused since I had written or received them. Memories flooded back but with a new perspective of someone who had seen years of patterns, someone who had a detachment from the initial pain and excitement that was originally expressed or received.

It feels life-affirming to work with this raw material. To let go of the boxes of ephemera and recycle them. It's a transformative project which I feel will lead me in a new direction. Elements of painting, drawing, puppetry, photography and sound, all art forms I embrace are encompassed in this project.

Radio-Coteau Event

"Phantasme" in the background

 A few weeks ago I had the pleasure of displaying some new and old work at a wine event at Radio Coteau. It was fun seeing the work in a new setting. The wine was excellent!

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Hillary Younglove- Fulton X Gallery Exhibit

With my talented studio art class.

Despite almost losing everything in the fires, the gallery and my home were miraculously spared. The fire reached within blocks. Even though it was closed a few weeks after the fires, a few pieces manged to sell!

Fresco Workshop

Last weekend I taught a two - day intensive, private fresco workshop. It was so much fun working with adults again. This fall I'll be teaching my semester long class, Lost Techniques of the Ancients.

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Phantasme

Phantasme, encaustic, mixed media, 4x6ft, 2017

This is quite a departure from my typical mode of painting. I was initially inspired by some blurry photos I shot of my garden. It started as a loose oil sketch from those blurry images. Once I had the sketch down, with every layer of wax the imagery changed. I stopped looking at the photos and let my imagination and intuition flow. Shapes and forms morphed until they began to find their balance. The colors and mood remind me of art from the 1930's and the colors from Fantasia though I was not looking at any images as I created the piece.

Extinguish My Eyes

“Extinguish my eyes, I'll go on seeing you. 
Seal my ears, I'll go on hearing you.
 And without feet I can make my way to you,
without a mouth I can swear your name.

Break off my arms, I'll take hold of you
with my heart as with a hand.
Stop my heart, and my brain will start to beat.
And if you consume my brain with fire, I'll feel you burn in every drop of my blood.” -Rainer Maria Rilke

Saint Tarcisius,Alexandre Falguière, 1868

Beautific Rapture
The expression of this sculpture moved me to reinterpret it as a painting. I have been using sculptures as a base for many of my paintings since the late 80's. In the beginning, I would sculpt my own pieces, translate them into a photo then a painting. Over the years I have taken photos of sculptures from various museums. With the web, I don't have to travel as far to find inspiring images to reinterpret. They are now at my fingertips. While some of the sculptures are famous some are more obscure. I'm looking for a gaze that moves me.
After painting this last summer I let it sit over a year before I decided to blend the text of Rilke with the face of this sculpture by Falguiere which can be found at the Musee d'Orsay and the MET. 

Táhirh

Táhirh, 36x48, encaustic, mixed media, 2017

Deconstructing K-3, encaustic mixed media, 36x48, 2017

These are a few paintings I recently finished. One is a portrait of Táhirh, a Persian poet and theologian.  The second image is from my third in a series called "Deconstructing K".

Vesper

Vesper, encaustic, mixed media, 24x30, 2017

Another abstract painting reworked with layers from the past. Can you recognize these features?

Printemps

Printemps, encaustic, mixed media, 2017

 

This piece has gone through many iterations. Can you recognize the face from a famous work of art?
I've been embedding details from old paintings and sculptures for years in my work.

I love this little detail of a fresco I shot from the ceiling of the Villa d'Este in Tivoli, Italy a few years ago. Not sure who the artist is.

Decontructing K2

Deconstructing K2, encaustic, mixed media, 36x48, 2017

This is a new piece I just finished. I've been experimenting more with mark making, layering text from grave rubbings I did in Rome and embedding various ephemera I've collected. It's a fun way to work-creating as you go, not knowing what the final outcome will be. I think I'll continue more in this direction. It's all about intuition.

Panoply

Sinews, 36x48, encaustic, pastel, 2016

Panoply, 18x24, encaustic, mixed media, 2016

This summer I've been experimenting with simple mark making. Just playing and seeing where it takes me.

Reworking Old Paintings

This summer I'm taking a bunch of old paintings that I'm not attached to and reworking them. Here is a Buddha I painted 10 years ago that I've taken one step further.

"Reflection", 36x36, encaustic, mixed media, 2016

Fading Tara

Fading Tara, 24x24, 2016

This piece started as a more traditional portrait I painted a few years back. I'm in the process of reworking many of my older portraits as experiments for a series I've been developing over the past years called, "Traces". This piece started as an oil sketch then was layered with colored waxes, some drawing, and a charcoal impression of an ancient Roman tombstone that I did a rubbing from at the American Academy in Rome. Lots of subtracting.

Christine de Pizan

Christine de Pizan, encaustic, 36x48, 2016

Christine de Pizan was a woman who supported her family through writing, a rarity in the 1400's. Born in Venice, married at 15 and widowed by 25 Christine took up writing to support her mother and children. She was a philosopher and French poet.

Christine de Pisan: Epistles of Othea
1404-08
Manuscript (Ms. français 606), 360 x 270 mm (folio size)
Bibliothčque Nationale, Paris

Christine de Pisan: The Book of the City of Ladies
c. 1405
Manuscript (Ms. français 606), 360 x 270 mm
Bibliothčque Nationale, Paris