Encaustic Mixed Media

No. 2 Silk Road Lift-Off

January 12, 2018January 12, 2018 Jay M. Ressler 0 Comments Encaustic Mixed media. Silk Roads

Silk Road Lift-Off

Mixed Media Encaustic Collage

Many months ago Susan Biebeck at Studio B handed me a 20 x 20 canvas urging me to make a piece for an exhibit called “Studio B on the Road,” which opens tomorrow night, January 12, 2018, at GoggleWorks Center for the Arts.

About the time I got down to working on the challenge I finished reading The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, by Peter Frankopan, which concluded with the assertion that the Silk Roads are rising again as a pivotal force in the world. Included in this piece is the phrase “The Silk Roads are Rising” in several of the languages spoken in the countries in the area.

Featured are pictures of Chinese oil rigs, Chinese electric cars, the Erbil Rotana Hotel – the world’s priciest hotel – in Erbil the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan. The centerpiece is a reproduction of Heinrich Von Diez Albums 1258 illustration of “The Conquest of Baghdad by the Mongols.”

Announcement of On the Road Opening

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Jay M. Ressler

Jay Ressler Composite Photography, Encaustic Art, and Oil Painting He is an outstanding location photographer and painter, with an eye that can capture the soul of a Havana back street as beautifully as the sip of a hungry hummingbird, often with compelling black and white images. Jay Ressler is best known for artistic expression that lives in layers between opposites. “I like to explore boundaries,” he explains. “Boundaries between consciousness and the unconscious, between reality and imagination, between certainty and skepticism.” He does this by compositing his own photography in multiple layers to produce stunningly original, interleaved images. Using Photoshop, other image manipulation software and a variety of digital effects, he paints one photographic layer on top of another. He takes advantage of textures he's captured along with an array of processes for manipulating light, contrast, and color to tell the story. “Distorting and reinterpreting the literal 'machine moments' captured by the camera is as old as the art of photography,” he insists. Jay occasionally extends his multi-layered approach to encaustic mixed media creations. Based on ancient techniques, the process begins with cooking his own recipes of beeswax and damar resin and applying this medium between the layers of photographic images, along with various pigmented compounds and materials to add color, texture and expression. Either way, the results are riveting. The viewer is drawn into an unfolding, dreamlike scene that might be heart-warming, haunting, gritty, poignant or magical. Sometimes, within the various layers, all of the above. The award-winning photographer/artist has many dimensions himself. He studied advanced digital photography at Pittsburgh Filmmakers and advanced encaustic techniques with leading instructors in the field. He worked as an underground coal miner, steelworker, machinist, labor and civil rights activist, copywriter and commercial printer. He has a BS in Psychology from Albright College.

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