Elevating

Encaustic painter and photographer exhibit at ANDARA Gallery

When local artists Tara Wilkinson and Andrew Csafordi found themselves in Arizona in February, they couldn’t have anticipated what was around the corner. The inspiration for the couple’s latest joint exhibition of new work, ELEVATIONS, brings an exciting, uplifting and vast selection of visual art to their relatively new space, ANDARA Gallery, but also to the magnificent BARN Gallery situated on the property.

Two very different artists and interpretations. Tara Wilkinson, a fine art photographer, captures the beauty of the Grand Canyon and the Arizona landscape in extraordinary detail, enhancing colour and specifics to portray the raw beauty of the vast and differing scenery, capturing its elevations seamlessly. Encaustic painter Andrew Csafordi paints and plays with wax, creating visually wondrous works which vary enormously in style. Displaying together, the result is an impressive one, and one that flows with ease and excitement.

Fine art photographer Tara Wilkinson during the ELEVATIONS exhibition at ANDARA Gallery

“Elevations means different things to Tara’s exhibition and my exhibition,” explains Csafordi. “Tara’s exhibition is more about the elevations of the rocky Grand Canyon and Arizona, where my elevations are inspired by that, but taking it from the levels of different elevations within the painting, almost like carving into the wax, as well as now creating different heights within the small piece, so it’s more of a different explanation of elevations for me.”

Csafordi says it’s all about composition. “It’s all within the about a quarter-of-an-inch of elevations, but there is so much you can do within that quarter-of-an-inch,” he says. “You think it has to be massive, like the Grand Canyon, but it doesn’t, that’s Tara’s work; my work is almost elevations on a minute level and then enjoying all the little depths and nicks.” While some of his pieces are simple, monotone, uncomplicated, others are complex, rich, fantastical and thoroughly beguiling in their approach. He talks about how the rich little scribes and scratches in the wax expose themselves during the process, one he explains is done blind. Part of it too is touching and feeling the painting, says Csafordi, something he encourages people to do if they are gentle.

“I have been painting exclusively in encaustic for about 18 years, and that’s a fair amount of time,” says Csafordi, who has painted for some 40 or 50 years. While his work constantly grows and evolves, he says for him, “It is about being brave enough to risk losing a painting when you go to the edges, to the boundaries, to the new heights, when you are taking those risks you can lose the painting in five seconds.” He says the beauty for him is the exhilaration of discovering something new. “Play is an important part of life and we forget to play as we grow up,” says Csafordi, who admits to still being a big kid.

He says part of encaustic is painting to make it look like it’s not encaustic, because sometimes encaustic has an elementary look of wax that’s been dripped on. “Then there’s a whole other level where encaustic is just a painting medium like oil and acrylic, it just happens to dry in five seconds,” he says. “When you can take encaustic and move it beyond what is recognizable, it has all kinds of layers and subtleties. Encaustic does give you so much ability to do things, add and subtract so much more easily than oil paint, but for an artist mostly it’s an evolution process and never losing the spontaneity of the wax. Because it dries in five seconds, you are forced to be spontaneous and I am exhilarated by that spontaneity.”

Encaustic painter Andrew Csafordi with his latest creation at the ELEVATIONS exhibition.

For Wilkinson, capturing Arizona through a lens brings the different terrain and vegetation, the huge open remote land, rough and rugged, to life through colour, encompassing texture, but also the many nuances. “It’s hard to explain how you feel when you are at the Grand Canyon, but it takes your breath away,” says Wilkinson.

“To think that the Colorado River eroded this landscape and that from where we were standing to the bottom was 14 kilometres, it blows your mind.” While she pushed the saturation on some of the images, the effect works and depicts the stunning scenery, but also the tiny details, extremely effectively. “I wanted to push that colour through and see where I could take the photograph; I don’t do that every time and there are some photographs that are pure images, but there are other times when I use the photograph as the medium to then see where I can go with it to make it more of an art piece.”

Rock formations appearing as lava, or something else entirely, a lonely tree struggling to exist in the most inhospitable spot, are all part of the memories boldly captured by this fine art photographer. Wilkinson speaks to the spectacular light, the energy of the place and how there is beauty in simple and simplicity. “The strange thing about Arizona too is you could be going through an area with the big cactuses and then you are in a forest with snow and its cold; it can be 88 degrees up in Phoenix and you can be up in the Grand Canyon and you have to put your winter coat on,” she says. “We were glad to get this trip in and it was good for all of us. Everywhere we go, we take in our experiences and we come home filled with new ideas,” says Wilkinson. “Travel for us is soul food.”

“Art is more important than we think it is and more important than unfortunately schools think it is,” adds Csafordi. “We need art in these troubled times and we need art to ground us.” ELEVATIONS exhibition and sale is on now and runs until September 30 (COVID-19 safety protocols are observed). Open daily 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., ANDARA Gallery is located at 54 Wilson Road, Bloomfield (northwest of Bloomfield, close to Highway 62). For more details, please visit andaragallery.com