Koans, Urban & Earth

The Koans are a requiem for the earth, responding to our rapidly changing environment. The wild, tangled abstractions and landscapes navigate memory, hope, and excitement while carrying my childhood landscape on the Mississippi Gulf Coast forward in my mind. There, verdant land, hurricanes, disappearing coastline, majestic oaks, and the calm but potentially destructive water and wind formed my worldview.

Like traditional Zen koans that require prolonged meditation, these works reward sustained viewing, unveiling different aspects of their complex materiality over time. They are encaustic monotype paintings, 60”x 38” on gampi paper, and utilize my handmade wax paint heavily pigmented with graphite powder, a mineral form of carbon. They are meant to transcend logic and provoke enlightenment. These Koans present questions: how does carbon—fundamental to all life—become destructive to the planet?

The HOTbox Grande, pictured below, was created by Paula Roland to produce the heat needed for the alchemical encaustic and graphite medium.