I first met Laura Moriarty at R&F Paints in Kingston, New York. Ms Moriarty is the Gallery Director of R&F, and also a fine artist. In the picture above, we see the work titled “Area Excavation”. Ms. Moriarty completed this work in 2010, and created it from encaustic on panel. She calls pieces like the one above “sculptural paintings.” Aren’t they great?
Here is a statement about her work, from her website…. and here is a link...Laura Moriarty
My current work aims to create a glossary of geologic processes – as if each piece were a diagram in a textbook, illustrating cross-sections and core samples of imagined terrains. These sculptural paintings are built up thickly around embedded artifacts, and then excavated and eroded to expose what is buried. Like rock faces or archaeological sites, their layers reveal the history of their making and can be read like the lines of a story.
I work with pigmented beeswax, exploring the range of things that I can get to happen at varying temperatures. The process of heating and cooling has evolved into a way for me to draw parallels between human and geologic time. Rocks can tell the story of time if you know how to read their bands of strata. In my own comparatively smaller way, I consider painting similarly, using the process of making as a tool for discovery. In my work, process and concept merge as I consider the pure medium fodder for a re-visioning of natural history, where I get to make all the specimens in the museum.