David Price – Artist Statement

I have pursued encaustics to create pieces that speak to a place that is somehow familiar and timeless. Transporting the viewer into the landscape is an inviting sense of depth, an image with a rich and layered surface that makes each piece look affected by the passage of time. My work responds to the concept of refuge and prospect. It is a basic human need and desire to seek out a secure and sheltered place, the refuge, looking out at a broad view, the prospect. Often I will incise lines at the edges of a work to further this sense of refuge, to create an architectural sense that the viewer is in a place looking out.

None of my works are of any particular scene per se. They are inspired by images and views that I have seen and are meant to be more archetypal. I have a large collection of art books and often times a small section of a painting, two colors working well together in the background, can inspire a work. The Renaissance painters in particular have fantastic backgrounds in their works, the colors and light, as well as the patina of age.

The sensory pleasures of working with encaustics never cease to amaze me. First, is the creation of the ground, cracked and irregular, subtly layered with color to bring out the imperfections and character of the surface.  Then, the studio is filled with the scent of the beeswax that is the main component of the encaustic medium. The wax medium is layered with colored pigments, in a subtractive as well as additive process, to create the translucent depth of the surface, with the heat of the application process further enhancing the character of the ground under. Finally, the surface is fused with heat, to “freeze” the image in time.

1988 University of Washington, Seattle WA

UW Rome Architecture Program Architect & Principal Flat Rock Productions, Langley, WA

• 2007 Finding Place, Pacini Lubel, Seattle, WA
• 2007 New Works in Encaustic, Museo, Langley, WA
• 2006 New Paintings, Museo, Langley, WA
• 2005 Museo, Langley, WA
• 2004 Blue Creek Gallery, Walla Walla, WA
• 2003 Blue Creek Gallery, Walla Walla, WA
• 2002 Pratt Fine Arts Center, Seattle, WA
  Inspired Architect, Blue Creek Gallery, Walla Walla, WA
• 2001 Pratt Fine Arts Center, Seattle, WA

• 2007 Per Square Foot, Conrad Wilde Gallery, Tucson, AZ
• 2007 X-07, Director’s Choice Exhibit, MM Gallery, San Francisco, CA
• 2007 Here & Now-Encaustic Invitational, MM Gallery, San Francisco, CA
• 2007 Torso, Museo, Langley, WA
• 2006 Pacini Lubel Gallery, Seattle, WA
• 2006 Simon Edwards Gallery, Yakima, WA
• 2006 The Avenue Gallery, Victoria, BC, Canada
• 2006 Museo, Langley, WA
• 2005 Homage, Museo, Langley, WA
• 2002 Blue Creek Gallery, Walla Walla, WA
• 2002 Museo, Langley, WA
• 2000 Museo, Langley, WA

Professional Experience