About Laura

The motivating concept behind my work has long been the natural world and our place in it.

I’ve lately been exploring a more abstracted means of expressing the concept of the landscape by incorporating ideas that are recurrent and important to me; ideas such as geography and maps; science and environmental conservation; weather; exploration and navigation; history and memory; and the concept of one visiting an unknown terrain and one’s attempts to make sense of it.  Of great interest to me, as well, are the charts, documents and iconography that are representative of human efforts to effect, manage or classify an environment – an environment over which the indomitable force of nature, I like to think, will prevail eventually.

I find the medium of beeswax encaustic marvelous for exploring these diverse concepts. My paintings are executed in multiple layers, combining beeswax and oil paint, sometimes with watercolour, image transfer, graphite and collage.

Beeswax is a sensual and organic medium – very much alive – and works in harmony with my intuitive, archaeological-like process. Layer upon layer is built up then scraped and excavated away, adding and removing, obscuring and revealing, until a surface that is rich in depth, luminosity and texture, and replete with history, atmosphere and meaning, is achieved.

Laura Culic
2011