pam barrett hackett

I am a sculpture-curious painter, working with encaustics and mixed media. My work is the product of my compulsion to visualize internal moments as a habitable space, to be simultaneously created and explored. I work intuitively, using a visual language inspired by nature’s universal patterns of structure, and light. My images are constructed, excavated and reconstructed, giving them both visible history, and physical depth. I alternately apply and scrape the waxy paint, sculpting the surface to reveal the layers beneath. I am always looking for the precarious balance between creating space and constructing an object, between depth and surface, between matter and ether. 

My process has led to piles of petal-like encaustic scrapings filling my studio. The recent sculptural pieces are inspired by, and constructed of, these remnant forms. This parallel body of work represents my continued exploration of the boundaries of the medium, and my search to expand my own visual vocabulary.