Geometric Abstractions in Wax
Built one dot at a time, in encaustic
Hello, and welcome.
I’m a Boston- and Provincetown-based painter working in encaustic—a wax-based medium made from beeswax and damar resin.
My work begins with simple geometric structures that I build slowly, dot by dot, using a heated wax stylus. Each piece develops through repetition and variation, where small, deliberate marks accumulate into something more complex.
The process is steady, meditative, and precise—balancing structure with intuition, and control with surprise.
-
Before I ever pick up the wax stylus, each painting begins with a digital design. Adobe Illustrator is where I sketch circles, squares, arcs, repeat patterns, and test color palettes until something clicks.
Once the structure feels right, I print it onto thin rice paper and fuse it to a wood panel coated with clear encaustic medium. As I paint, the digital colors underneath become a foundation I respond to — a quiet conversation between design and intuition.
-
When the panel is ready, everything shifts to the hands-on rhythm I love: dipping the heated stylus into a block of pigmented wax and placing one dot at a time across the surface.
Up close, thousands of dots create texture and movement; from across the room, geometry snaps back into focus. It’s that combination — structure and patience, design and touch — that keeps me returning to the wax again and again.
