PEG BACHENHEIMER
PEG BACHENHEIMER
Summer brings together the work of Peg Bachenheimer, Kathryn DeMarco, Paul Hrusovsky and Judy Keene, four of Craven Allen Gallery’s most popular artists. Working in a variety of mediums, including oil paint, collage and encaustic, they create pieces that range from complete abstraction to representational and figurative. Each artist pays special attention to the interactions of color and texture in their pieces, manipulating these elements in their own ways.
Peg Bachenheimer is best known for her work in encaustic but has recently turned her attention to acrylic paint. The years of work with hot and cold wax are evident in these new paintings, with dynamic forms rendered through layers of applied and subtracted paint. Each piece emerges from a memory, whether that is a place she has visited, a piece of music she has heard, or an experience in nature.
Statement
I paint intuitively, starting with an idea of colors I want to use and a feeling. Then a memory seems to emerge and become part of the process of building layers of color and texture. This memory is based in places I’ve been, music I’ve heard or experiences I’ve had, especially in nature. Finding colors, textures, shapes and lines that create a harmonious world leads me as I work. Sometimes my work is abstract and sometimes landscape based.
I work in a variety of media at different times. Lately I have been exploring acrylic paint with various drawing and collage materials and find it allows me to paint more freely. I also find oil paint mixed with cold wax medium as well as encaustic, pigmented hot wax interesting to work with. All my work involves building up layers and subtracting from them until the painting feels complete.
I want my paintings to convey a rich, vibrantly colored, visual and tactile experience connected to feelings evoked by the mystery and beauty of life and the passage of time. My process involves discovery: I don’t know all of what will emerge as I paint, and so I see painting as an act of faith and a way to connect with people and express hope for moving toward a peaceful, safe and healthy world for all people.
About Peg Bachenheimer
Peg Bachenheimer grew up in Seattle and Cleveland, and then lived in Massachusetts, New York City and Canada. She graduated from Smith College and Bank Street College of Education. For the past 55 years, North Carolina has been her home. She taught young children for 40 years mainly first and second grade in the Chapel Hill Carrboro Public Schools. She has lived both in Chatham County and Carrboro and now lives at Carolina Meadows with her husband Steve. They have 4 grown children and 6 grandchildren.
Her art education has included many classes at the ArtsCenter in Carrboro as well as multiple sessions at Penland School of Crafts in the NC mountains. Peg has been painting for the last 26 years. Her work has been featured in many regional group shows and has been collected nationally. She is a working member of Frank Gallery in Carrboro and represented by Craven Allen Gallery in Durham. She was a member of the Orange County Artists Guild for many years and is now a member of the Chatham Artists Guild and will be on their yearly studio tour in December.
PAST EXHIBITIONS
Peg Bachenheimer, Paul Hrusovksy and Ronan Kyle Peterson combine elements of nature with pure abstraction for their three-person show Craven Allen Gallery. The gallery is open for viewing with social distancing measures in place, and the works will able to view on the gallery’s website, cravenallengallery.com
Click here to take a video tour of the exhibition with Peg Bachenheimer!
PEG BACHENHEIMER
STATEMENT
My paintings start with random marks, colors and whatever I am feeling or thinking about that day. The painting develops from there as I add many layers of color and texture, sometimes removing paint, setting the painting aside and coming back to add more layers of color. I work on the painting until it feels complete, balanced and expresses a mood or feeling. I find that oil and cold wax, encaustic hot wax as well as acrylic-mixed media allow me to explore this process in different ways. I hope my paintings connect with that luminous space inside all of us.
My series of encaustic paintings at Craven Allen Gallery is influenced by recent reading, encouraged by a friend, about quantum physics which I didn’t really understand but which gave me a greater sense of the amazing energy of the universe. At the same time, the COVID-19 experience of staying home and having more time to paint, walk, think, read and notice the natural world has influenced my painting in many ways. Many of these paintings were created during my period of isolation. I found the process of encaustic painting was comforting and a good way to keep calm: the smell of hot beeswax, the beauty of the colors, and the torch flame which fuses each layer. Some of the pieces also have shellac burn which is exciting and a bit scary when you light the shellac on top of the last layer of wax and it burns into patterns.
A second series, Garden Light, is done with acrylic or oil paint and flowing brushwork. These paintings came out of all the time spent gardening and walking during this stay-at-home time. I became very aware of the changing light as the days went on, having more time to notice and look and be outside. As always, nature, color and light are my inspiration.
ABOUT PEG BACHENHEIMER
I am influenced by my early years in the Pacific Northwest, living later on in Cleveland, Massachusetts, New York City and Canada, and for the past 50 years, North Carolina with its beaches and mountains. Being an elementary school teacher for 38 years instilled a love for the freedom of children’s art and helps me appreciate the time I now have to explore painting. I grew up in a family immersed in art and so have looked closely at the work of other painters since I was a child visiting museums and taking art classes. This has influenced me as well as gardening, my yoga practice, people, travel, books and most of all, my children. Many roles through the years as daughter, sister, wife, mother, friend and now, grandmother, inform my work. My studio is at my home in Carrboro, North Carolina where I live with my husband, Steve.
ENCAUSTIC PAINTING
- What it is:
Encaustic painting is an ancient method of painting with wax. Early encaustic paintings from Greco-Roman Egypt have survived in good condition. Jasper Johns used encaustic in his paintings from the 1950’s, most famously his flag and target paintings.
Modern encaustic painting is a process of heating wax mixed with a resin, and often pigment, to around 200 degrees, applying it to a rigid substrate such as wood, and then fusing with a heat source such as a heat gun, iron or propane torch. Many layers are built up, fused, scraped back, incised and built up again. Oil paint or dry pigment, fabric, organic material or papers can be added. The final painting is usually buffed with a soft cloth to bring out the shine of the wax. This ancient and durable medium has a mystery, a luminosity and an organic quality.
- How to care for an encaustic painting:
Though these pieces seem fragile and potentially temperamental, they are durable and archival. Joanne Mattera, author of “The Art of Encaustic Painting”, describes encaustic paint to be the most archival paint medium that exists. People often worry about the wax melting or becoming soft. Because encaustic paint’s melting temperature is 150 degrees, the works can be hung or stored in normal living conditions (not too much above 100 degrees and not below freezing), with no risk of any damage. A commonly asked question is whether it will be affected by direct sunlight through a window. The answer is no, in indoor living conditions.
- Good resources on encaustic painting:
The Art of Encaustic Painting, by Joanne Mattera
Encaustic Art: The Complete Guide to Creating Fine Art with Wax, by Lissa Rankin
The Encaustic Studio: A Wax Workshop in Mixed-Media Art, by Daniella Woolf