Breaking Out of the Box

Ezshwan Winding has been a visual artist for 60 years. Her art education has been intense and varied. She has been living, working and teaching in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico for the last ten years.

Ezshwan strives to make art that touches people's hearts, either abstract or figurative, and that has spiritual meaning for her. Through her art, she hopes to connect with others with the beauty of harmony, color, form and energy. Quiet introspection often gives her a starting point on an image. Then comes the application of many layers of a mixture of molten beeswax, tree resin and colored pigments; each new layer is heat fused into the existing layer with a butane torch. At times she draws or paints on the layers and then scrapes and rebuilds the facade. Ezshwan says, "This action is much like analyzing a dream." Layer after layer is applied, scraped, incised, fused and marked to allow the truth of the piece to speak. The revealed layers whisper their subtle messages. Never having complete control of the encaustic process, she allows her subconscious to take over so that the work may transform beyond the mundane and predictable. Like jazz, there are improvisations that can take work to a deeper, more subconscious state that can be meditative and musical.

Ezshwan says, "The fluidity of encaustic is challenging, exhilarating and inspiring and exciting." this make a painting that can be looked into as well as looked at. The layered luminosity is appealingly tactile in the original work, allowing the viewer to stoke and caress the surface, discovering the sensual experience of encaustic.

Ezshwan has worked in almost every medium including oil,acrylic, sculpture, and printmaking, but has concentrated on painting in encaustic for the last 14 years.

Her worked has been exhibited in galleries and museums nationally and internationally and is in both private and corporate collections.