Eileen Bochsler - A New Twist on an Ancient Medium
Encaustic, a Greek word that means “to heat or burn in” is an ancient painting technique dating back to the 1st century AD. At Splash Gallery, Eileen Bochsler brings new excitement to this art form with vibrant colors and gorgeous layers of drawing, found objects like leaves, flowers and sea glass with paint to her contemporary, encaustic creations of beeswax and damar resin heated to a molten liquid. This heated liquid is then painted on a firm surface layer by layer. Each layer is fused separately resulting in a painting with depth, texture and transparency. The variety of colors of encaustic paints are created by adding pigment powder to the medium.
Art has been an important part of Eileen’s life from a very early age. She has worked with a variety of media over the years to include inks, acrylics, watercolors, charcoal and oil paint. Her style of practice had always been realism.
As she became more serious about her art, she looked for new techniques and medium to better express herself—the result is a dynamic union of abstraction and encaustic painting. “My work is inspired by nature; not just the beauty I experience visually, but the serenity, wildness, and ferocity I experience emotionally. Each one of my pieces is a unique expression of that experience. As an intuitive painter, I let the paint and the process guide me. Many of my paintings use pigmented shellac because it helps me convey the delicate, lace patterns we often find in the world around us,” notes Eileen.
Eileen enjoys the support and comradery of the other member artists at Splash. Eileen notes, “Working at the Gallery has given me the opportunity to share art with collectors. I love being able to experience, first-hand, the excitement of adding a new piece of art to their collection.”
