"Wandering Woods"

Encaustic Photograph

11"x14"

2022

Artist Bio
Amy Rieg is an award-winning photographer and encaustic artist who lives and works in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She lived most of her adult life in Colorado and when her husband lost his job of 19 years they moved to Pennsylvania to live with family and return to school where he attended HACC, Central Pennsylvania's Community College and graduated, with highest honors, in December 2018 with an AFA in Photography. Amy is fortunate enough to have become part of the lineage of photographers who have learned from the great masters. Her mentors Ronald Talbot and Garrick Dorsett had personal learning experiences with Sally Mann, Owen Butler, Minor White and Ansel Adams, who learned from the photographic pioneers, Alfred Stieglitz and Edward Steichen.

Being able to experiment and try different techniques in college allowed Amy to explore encaustic photography. Encaustic is a Greek word meaning "to heat or burn in" (enkaustikos). Heat is used throughout the process, from melting the beeswax and varnish to fusing the layers of wax. Encaustic consists of natural bee's wax and dammar resin (crystallized tree sap). Encaustic painting is an ancient technique, dating back to the Greeks, who used wax to caulk ship hulls. Perhaps the best known of all encaustic work are the Fayum funeral portraits painted in the 1st through 3rd centuries A.D. by Greek painters in Egypt.

Amy says, "Light surrounds us, and as a photographer I capture that light and interpret it in different ways, I love to be able to share that through traditional prints. But I was able to elevate my art to a new level when I found encaustic photography. Adding wax to an image can create a sense of mystery, romanticize the light, or produce excitement through the texture. My hope is to give my audience something they've never seen before and instill an appreciation of things that often go overlooked in addition to observing our world in a different way."

https://www.instagram.com/amy_rieg_art/