Ariela Steif

Interview on Whopple

admin — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 17:58:23 +0000

There was an interview of my recently published on Whopple.com. You can read it here at http://www.whopple.com/artist-interview-with-ariela-steif.html.

New works

admin — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 21:56:51 +0000

Jetsam 3 and 4 are below. #5 is finished, although my camera has recently decided to acquire a mind of its own, so photographing 5 will take a few more days. I will also be posting images soon from another new series. (I’m currently working on three different, though related, series simultaneously. Which in some ways is good, because they seem to feed off of each other.)

Jetsam 3, encaustic on panel, 12″ x 12″.

Jetsam 4, encaustic on panel, 12″ x 12″.

This one below is a stand-alone painting, unrelated to any of the series that I’m currently working on.

“6.20.2010″, encaustic on panel, 5″ x 7″.

New series: “Jetsam”

admin — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 19:19:35 +0000

“Jetsam 2″, encaustic, 12″ x 12″.

“Jetsam 2″, detail.

jet·sam (jět’səm)
n.

Cargo or equipment thrown overboard to lighten a ship indistress.
Discarded cargo or equipment found washed ashore. See Usage Note at flotsam.
Discarded odds and ends.

[From earlier jetson, alteration of Middle English jetteson, athrowing overboard ; see jettison .]

The first painting in this series is also a part of the playing card series (here), and they are made from scraps of paint that I scraped off the sides of paintings after they are finished (paint on the edges presents a structurally fragile point) and then saved. Numbers 3 and 4 are coming as soon as I can photograph them.

Ideally, all of the works in this series would be made entirely from scraps, but right now I don’t have nearly enough. So for the later works it will have to suffice for them to partly use scraps and partly use new paint that has been made into scraps. The new scraps are formed by laying down strips of molten paint on my wooden painting table and then, once they’ve cooled to the consistency of latex, scraping them up with a palette knife.

Poker card encaustic sketches

admin — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 01:21:00 +0000

I recently started a series of encaustic paintings (although they’re so tiny, and done quickly enough that they probably qualify as ‘sketches’ instead) using poker cards as the support.

Here are the first eleven, all encaustic, and all approximately 2.5″ x 3.5″:

This final one was made from scraps of encaustic from older paintings. When I’m finished with a painting, I scrape off the excess wax that dripped over the sides of the support, and it’s saved to be reused — evidently into a strange writhing mass of color….

New series: Haemostasia

admin — Wed, 12 May 2010 19:14:57 +0000

I’ve recently been working on a new series that I’ve decided to call “Haemostasia”, a medical term that refers to the process through which skin wounds stop bleeding and knit themselves back together.

I’ll probably write more at a later date on why I’m using this phrase and the conceptual constructions behind the series, but for now here are the first two:

Haemostasia 2, encaustic on panel, 12″ x 12″.

Haemostasia 1, encaustic and mixed media on panel, 12″ x 12″.

3 new knots

admin — Tue, 04 May 2010 20:08:00 +0000

Knot 20, encaustic on panel, 12″ x 12″.

Knot 21, encaustic on panel, 12″ x 12″.

Knot 22, encaustic on panel, 12″ x 12″.

There will be the beginnings of a new series coming soon; I think that the knots will be on hiatus for a while, although not necessarily finished for good.

Old and new Knots

admin — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 21:04:16 +0000

Two recent Knot paintings

Knot 19, encaustic on panel, 12″ x 12″.

Knot 7, encaustic on panel, 12″ x 12″. This one was begun many months ago, and underwent long periods of change and stasis until I was finally happy with it.

IF: subterranean

admin — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 03:18:03 +0000

This drawing of two Upper Paleolithic skeletons excavated in Italy is doubling as an Illustration Friday, for the the topic ‘subterranean’.

New works

admin — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 04:25:44 +0000

A few new paintings and a couple of drawings, all of which have been sitting around waiting to be digitized.

Knot 14, 12″ x 12″, encaustic on panel.

Knot 15, 12 ” x 12″, encaustic on panel.

This is a small series (within a series!), titled respectively, Knot 14, 15, and 16. All are 4″ x 8″, ink and encaustic on gessoed corrugated cardboard.

A fence on campus; charcoal on paper.

Two skeletons excavated in Italy, named Romito 1 and 2 in the archeological record; they date to the Upper Paleolithic era. Charcoal on paper; done from a photo.

Three new paintings

admin — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 03:24:34 +0000

Three new paintings in the knot series. There are a couple more coming soon, as well as a few new drawings, as soon as I digitize them.

Knot 11, 7″ x 5″, encaustic on panel.

Knot 12, 7″ x 5″, encaustic on panel.

Knot 13, 12″ x 12″, encaustic on panel.