A second visit to Oaxaca, Mexico was the influence for Ellen Chuse’s painting Goddess. Chuse has chosen to break away from an austere series of paintings, Dark Matter, and work more lyrically. While echoing the visual vocabulary that her work is known for, Chuse instinctively incorporates aspects of Oaxacan art and culture—vibrant color, organic forms, as well as the region’s well-known barro negro black clay pottery—into this new acrylic on paper.

Amy Weil’s encaustic work is created with a minimal vocabulary that intimately visualizes how organic forms interact within a grid to explore narratives and relationships. Says Weil, “I am interested in creating abstractions that have vulnerability as well as strength. I strive to distill emotion through paint by a direct and intuitive method, one that allows for a faith in sense and mystery that goes beyond not being able to predict visual results. It is fluid and non-linear. The techniques I use to build up layers of wax, along with incising, scraping and fusing pigments lends itself well to this process-driven, abstract painting style.”

Through the use of collage, Shanee Epstein exhibits a fascination with technique as well as visual content. Epstein’s newest pieces explore spatial give-and-take, the shift between simple and complex, as well as narrative versus abstract. The geometry of shape plays off of the sensuality of color and texture. Incorporating handmade paper and fragments from earlier pieces, Epstein’s new pieces are both simple, yet layered and complicated. Epstein pushes the boundaries of the rectangle by creating new shapes within the surface of her work. Shanee says, “I have introduced using my sewing machine—a skill traditionally associated with women—as a great way of attaching and uniting multiple layers of diverse materials. I like the tactile effect of the stitching on the surface, one that is delicate yet strong at the same time.”