ARTIST OF THE MONTH / ELLEN KOMENT ORIGINALLY POSTED ON R&F HANDMADE PAINTS HTTP://WWW.RFPAINTS.COM/
Q & A WITH ELLEN KOMENT & GALLERY DIRECTOR LAURA MORIARTY LM: Is drawing an important part of your practice, or do you pull images from your imagination? EK: I think that my work right now is all about drawing and yes I do look at the natural world as an infinite resource in it’s variety of lines and shapes. But often as I begin working the images become a few steps removed from the original source and come more from an inner resource. To me drawing refers to making linear marks, whether on paper or wax, whether I am looking at a plant, a figure, a landscape, or inside myself. LM: How have the different places you've lived influenced the way your work has evolved over the years?
EK: I have been fortunate to have lived in three great areas in my life. I was born and grew up in New York City, I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to go to graduate school at UC Berkeley, and stayed for 25 years, and now Santa Fe, NM. Of course New York is the foundation, with great schools, the High School of Music and Art and Cooper Union, great museums and galleries. At Cooper we had Albers oriented professors on one hand, and Abstract Expressionists on the other. I think I am still working on that paradox. In the earliest years we lived half a block from the beach in Coney Island, a landscape with lots of figures! When I went to Berkeley it was because I was intrigued by the California Figure Painters..and Elmer Bischoff was my graduate advisor. Beyond that, I would say that my first trip up the North Coast to Mendocino changed the way I saw everything. It was so beautiful. Fifteen years ago I moved to Santa Fe after falling in love with it as a resident at the Wurlitzer Foundation in Taos. The incredible light and openness thrills me still, and constantly. My work has, I believe become more open and more fluid than ever before. And Santa Fe has been kind to me as an artist. Encaustic painting, which I began back in San Francisco, has exploded around me and given me a luminous and vibrant medium in which to express myself. I have always worked with layers and loved the idea that something from the past is revealed in the present, or that something which is below peeks through. I think this is another one of the reasons I was drawn to Encaustic. LM: Your paintings illustrate the natural world, but they seem to be rooted in figuration. Is that part of your foundation and training, or do you see plants as figures? EK: I had a very traditional education at Cooper Union, with lots of figure drawing and I have taught it from time to time. I have worked with the figure extensively throughout my career, a kind of linear figuration was an important part of my work “pre-encaustic”and seems to be resurfacing. Also, with plant and landscape forms they each seem to go in and out of my work. However, I have never actually thought of plants as figures, but they are, of course growing, shifting, moving. In this way they share certain characteristics with us. LM: How great a role does chance play in your work? EK: Sometimes there are “happy accidents”, gifts from the god. Encaustic lends itself to that. I try to respect, appreciate and learn from them, but ultimately it is important to me to be able to shape the direction of a painting, to have that kind of control. I recently did some experiments with pouring wax, with some beautiful results, but I don’t know if I will ever be able to control it adequately on a larger scale. LM: What are you working on right now?
EK: I am getting ready for a show at Box Gallery in Santa Fe, which will open July 23. I am continuing to explore the relationship between line and color, looking at both figures dancing, as well as other natural forms. I am intrigued by the movement of line and color through the pictorial space, so that, perhaps, both of those elements float through the painting as dancers move through space.
ARTIST STATEMENT i began working with encaustic about 18 years ago, in San Francisco. Someone just gave me some beeswax, and somehow it evolved into painting with encaustic. There was little information available, and I made some big mistakes, but it intrigued me because it facilitated working with all the elements I loved while working in oil. Transparency, layering, and the juxtaposition of line, color and form. My paintings are, and always have been, based in my observations of the natural world. Plants, plains, smoke, and always about light. Sometimes those elements are more visible, sometimes they take a back seat to the formal painting concerns. I think it is important not to lose sight of myself as an artist who works in encaustic, as differentiated from an "encaustic artist". Art is never about just the materials involved, it is about the heart and soul of the artist making it. Click here to view Ellen's website.
BIO Koment grew up in New York City, and was fortunate to attend the HS of Music and Art, and then the Cooper Union Art School. She left to attend graduate school at UC Berkeley, and because of her interest in the California Figure Painters. Her fisrt show in San Francisco was at the San Francisco Museum of Art “Emerging Artists�. She went on to win an NEA regional award, and to show for a number of years at the Ebert Gallery, as well as in Los Angeles. She first went to New Mexico as a resident at the Wurlitzer Foundation, which she returned to many times until she finally moved to Santa Fe in 1994. She is now represented in Santa Fe by the Box Gallery, and is one of the prominent Encaustic Artists in the Southwest. She has been teaching painting and drawing at the college level for 25 years, and workshops in encaustic in her studio for 15.
RESUME EDUCATION MA, Painting, UC Berkeley, 1983 BFA Cooper Union Art School, New York City
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS SOLO Upcoming: Box Gallery 2010 ENCAUSTIC Box Gallery, Santa Fe, 2008 ENCAUSTIC Waxlander Gallery, Santa Fe, 2005 ENCAUSTIC Waxlander Gallery, Santa Fe, 2004 ENCAUSTIC Helix Gallery, Santa Fe, NM, 2000 ENCAUSTIC Ebert Gallery, San Francisco, 1997, ENCAUSTIC Cynthia Woody Gallery, Scottsdale, Arizona, January 1997 ENCAUSTIC Ebert Gallery, San Francisco, California, 1996 Ebert Gallery, San Francisco, California 1995 Vita Gallery, Portland, Oregon 1994 ENCAUSTIC Shapiro Jameson Gallery, San Francisco, California 1991 Pheonix College Art Gallery, Phoenix, Arizona1991 J. Noblett Gallery, Sonoma, California 1990, 1988, 1987 Clatsop College Gallery, Astoria, Oregon 1987 Piper Sonoma, Healdsburg, California 1986 Solano College Gallery, Fairfield, California 1984 The Annex Gallery, Santa Rosa, California 1983
GROUP Originals 2007, Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, NM ENCAUSTIC Waxlander Gallery 2001, 2002 Women Artists of New Mexico, National Museum of Women in the Arts, at Lewallen Gallery, Santa Fe, 1999, ENCAUSTIC Cup Show, Karan Ruhlen Gallery, Santa Fe, NM 1999, ENCAUSTIC Moxley/Ross Naranjo Santa Fe, NM 1998 Santa Fe International Academy of Art, 1997 Animals, Waxlander Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico 1996 Fenix Gallery, Taos, New Mexico 1995 Annual Exhibit, The Oregon Arts Council, Salem, Oregon 1993 Introductions, Solomon Dubnick Gallery, Sacramento, California 1992 Opening/Closing, Artspace, Los Angeles, California 1991 Balance Brought Forward, Artspace, Los Angeles, California 1991 Arts 1990, California Museum of Art, Santa Rosa, California 1990 Arts 1989, California Museum of Art, Santa Rosa, California 1989 Painting Invitational, Bowery Gallery, New York City, New York 1988 Four Artists, Berkeley Art Center, Berkeley, California 1988 The San Francisco Arts Festival Juried Exhibit, San Francisco, California 1984 Juried Exhibition, The Richmond Art Center, Richmond, California 1969 New Painters, The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA 1967
AWARDS AND COMMISSIONS 1998 Gottlieb Foundation Emergency Assistance Grant 1997 Creative Work Grant, University of New Mexico 1994 Helene Wurlitzer Foundation Residency Grant 1991 Sonoma County Visual Artist's Grant (NEA) 1986 Helene Wurlitzer Foundation Residency Grant 1983 McDonald Mansion, Stained Glass Commision 1983 Helen Wurlitzer Foundation Residency Grant
REVIEWS Pasatiempo, New Mexican, April 1996 Pasatiempo, New Mexican, February 1996 Painting for Katy "Bird" Magnunsen, Artweek, Jan 1993 Landscapes, Press Democrat, 1990 Four Artists, Oakland Tribune, 1985 New Painters at SFMOMA, San Francisco, CA 1966
TEACHING EXPERIENCE Santa Fe Community College (presently) University of New Mexico College of Santa Fe Western Oregon State College Santa Rosa Junior College Private workshops in encaustic. 1994-2009 Original posting:
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