Amanda Houston-Contemporary

As an artist, I want to try new things and push myself into exploring a new voice inside. I hope you will find it calming and healing.  I'm not abandoning my representational work. I just needed to find a new outlet for this new voice. And in the midst of this pandemic I hope you'll find it healing and soothing too. I'm excited to show you first. 

COLD WAX MEDIUM:  This new body of work  is not my “usual” style of painting or process of painting,  but it is a direction I am longing to do more of: Full of texture, ethereal mood and mystery. Cold Wax Medium (CWM) is a process of painting with oil paint and COLD wax. (Not hot wax, like encaustic.) This process doesn't require brushes or palette knives for tools. Only a brayer and a squeegee, swiping big passes of color, and then carving into them with tools and found objects (I used crumpled wax paper) to create texture and allow the under layers of color be revealed.

Each piece just starts in my head. No reference photos. No idea. Just a concept for a series. My goal was to paint "the calm feeling of morning mist". Basically, trying to paint air. I know. It's kind of a crazy challenge. Cause who can paint air? Air particles are seen when they are surrounded by something else. What emerged was mist through trees. Bushes in the morning air.  The last triptych of reflection pieces were done as quick gestural morning exercises, using the same color palette with absolutely no concept in mind. All free flow. What emerged from those morning exercises was suggestions of water reflections.  

I hope you can find some inner peace and calm in viewing these.