Amy Stark has been a “plein air” watercolor
artist since 1989, focusing on painting images of Greece (which
she visits almost every year) and other lands of her travels.
She believes the spontaneity and transparency of watercolor
make it a perfect medium for capturing the luminous quality of
the Mediterranean light. That extremely bright light creates
shadows that sculpt the scene in such a strong way that the
light/shadow becomes as solid an element as the buildings
themselves. It is this light and shadow interplay that most
compels her to begin a new painting. The solitude in her
paintings draws in the viewer. III
Around 2000, Amy became fascinated with
the process of painting with encaustic, which, being an ancient
Greek method of painting, seemed rather appropriate. Like
watercolor, one of the joys of encaustic (beeswax, damar resin,
and pigment) is its luminosity. Laye
rs of pigmented wax express
color and light in a way no other medium can. As light passes
through those layers it is reflected back up to the surface,
and the painting is illuminated from within. It is an elaborate
process, melting the wax, painting and remelting to fuse new
painting strokes to the layers below. The word
“encaustic” is based in Greek, meaning “to
heat” or “to burn in”, referring to this
process of fusing the paint. When remelting, one is never
exactly sure what the wax will do. Very much like the
watercolor process, encaustic painting can be full of
surprises. III
Amy Stark is a graphic designer by trade,
a painter and traveler by passion. As a graphic designer, she
has won awards for design excellence. As an artist, from New
York and now living in Santa Cruz, California, Amy has
exhibited widely in the United States, and in Greece, with
paintings in private collections from New York to New England,
from Athens to Amsterdam. Most recently, Amy has been invited
to exhibit in Italy, at the Florence Biennale. III
