NAA Featured Artist Series

NAA Featured Artist Series
March 20 to April 2
Featured Artist Series: Robin Luciano Beaty
Hills Gallery
Media: Encaustic and mixed media
Reception: Saturday March 22nd, 6-9pm

Robin Luciano Beaty

The Newburyport Art Association will present an exhibition of new encaustic and mixed-media paintings by Robin Luciano Beaty entitled "Wax and Wane". The exhibition will open on Thursday March 20th and continue through Wednesday April 2nd with an opening reception from 6pm to 9pm on Saturday March 22nd.

Beaty received her BFA from Massachusetts College of Art in 1998. Her paintings since have been widely popular with two previous exhibitions; "Travels in Watercolor" & "Translations". Her newest series Wax and Wane introduces the multi-layering technique of the ancient medium of Encaustic, a molten beeswax paint. This series, which is comprised of mostly small-scale, mixed media paintings on handmade 2" deep panels, evokes the themes of travel, family, and personal history. The use of found objects, heirloom lace and crochet, drawings, vintage textiles, indian saris, antique photographs, aluminum, nails, twine, wire, thread etc. all combine to create a compelling intersection of painting, sculpture and installation.

"I begin not knowing where I am going to end, what I'm going to include or extract from the painting." The process in this series is the intuitive "journey" rather than the recording or reproduction of visual space. Wax and Wane represents the addition and subtraction of medium, the teetering between abstract and representational, the construction and destruction of a landscape or object in order to arrive at a new understanding of place. The act of scraping, tearing and burning layers of wax from the surface of the painting to reveal distinct compositions and texture is metaphor for digging into memory and uncovering familiar landscapes by destructing them to even further discovery. "I choose to render this visceral language in a medium that can be both understood and confusing. Just as one would feel walking down the corridors of a foreign market in a far away culture, making discoveries and unlearning misconceptions."

Beaty is an award winning painter who lives and works in Byfield, MA. Her work can be found in galleries around New England, numerous juried shows, at the prestigious MassArt Benefit Auction and online at www.RobinLucianoBeaty.com.