Art by Medium: Encaustic

Lisa Pressman earned her BA in Art from Douglas College, Rutgers University and an MFA from Bard College. Her work has been exhibited extensively throughout the U.S. and abroad, including The Hunderton Art Museum, Clinton, NJ (2014), the Rosenfeld Gallery, Philadelphia, PA (2013); Therese A. Maloney Art Gallery, College of Saint Elizabeth, Morristown, NJ; group shows at SEFA; and Butters Gallery, Portland...

Lisa Pressman earned her BA in Art from Douglas College, Rutgers University and an MFA from Bard College. Her work has been exhibited extensively throughout the U.S. and abroad, incl...

Artist Statement: Painting is a meditation and a kind of alchemy in which I concentrate and transform my feelings and memories into something material that can be experienced in various ways by others. In this recent body of work, I draw on my deep love of nature: the impressions from my new rural life Upstate and in the Berkshires...

Lisa Pressman earned her BA in Art from Douglas College, Rutgers University and an MFA from Bard College. Her work has been exhibited extensively throughout the U.S. and abroad, incl...

22 x 22 x 2 inches encaustic on square wood panel Stella is an abstracted painting in rich encaustic (pigmented wax) on wood panel. Using a neutral palette of dark brown, light blu...

16 x 16 x 2 inches encaustic on square wood panel HOSTESS is an abstracted painting in rich encaustic (pigmented wax) on wood panel. A dark, cross-hatched pattern is overlaid with ...

Encaustic on panel

Encaustic on wood panel, framed.

This scene echoes Aeling’s earlier years exploring Yellowstone and the northern Rockies, where geothermal landscapes and severe winters formed a visual laboratory for him. The stark verticals of dead trees rising through steam and snow evoke the quiet violence of natural forces—eruption, freeze, regrowth. Aeling often spoke of landscapes as records of time, and this painting exemplifies that belief: it is both serene and charged with memory, documenting a terrain shaped by fire, water, and cold. That sense of elemental transformation is deepened by the medium itself. This is the only encaustic painting found in his studio following his death—a rare departure from his familiar oil technique. The wax-based process, involving heat, layering, and an almost geological buildup of surface, mirrors the very forces depicted in the scene. It stands as a singular artifact in his oeuvre, a final and poignant testament to his fascination with how material, time, and natural forces converge. Jeff Aeling Pine Trunks and Mineral Springs, Yellowstone encaustic on panel 48h x 34w in 121.92h x 86.36w cm JAE041 Jeff Aeling (1958–2025): The Sky Remembers Through Jeff Aeling’s eyes, the landscape becomes a world shaped as much by air as by earth. In works such as North of Las Vegas, NM and Pond Near St. Cloud, MN, he balances the quiet structure of plains and wetlands with skies alive in constant motion. His mastery of atmosphere is unmistakable in Light Pillars (2023) and Light Pillar (2023), where rare optical events turn night into architecture. Even intimate scenes like Crabapple, Dogwoods, and Red Bud find their emotional power under skies that lend the land its shifting character. Aeling’s winters in Hawaii deepened his sensitivity to movement and weather. Surfing taught him to read the rhythm of the ocean, a knowledge reflected in Wave, Kauai (2018), where a breaking wave becomes a luminous wall of force. In Volcano (2023), he channels the islands’ elemental drama, linking fire, vapor, and sky through the same atmospheric vocabulary found in his plains paintings...

Encaustic on wood panel, framed.

16 x 16 x 2 inches encaustic (wax) on wood panel HERD is a square, abstracted painting in rich encaustic (pigmented wax) on wood panel. The background is a creamy, olive green with...

Lisa Pressman earned her BA in Art from Douglas College, Rutgers University and an MFA from Bard College. Her work has been exhibited extensively throughout the U.S. and abroad, incl...