From bees to visual art

• Encaustic is a beeswax-based paint
• Focus on the environment
• Her installation BRINK is in the Kelowna Art Gallery

A Lake Country artist has used a unique medium to share stories about the environment and the organisms that inhabit it.

Angela Hansen uses encaustic, which is a beeswax-based paint with tree sap called damar resin, to create art.

She initially started exploring the medium 20 years ago as a natural paint, but soon realized she could sculpt with it too.

“I can do paintings with sculptural techniques within them and vice versa, which means I can sculpt and then paint on top of them with the encaustic medium,” Hansen told Kelowna 10.

Using a natural based medium is important to her since she sees herself as an environmental artist, with inspirations coming from nature such as oceans, the forest, and microorganisms that go by unnoticed.

“I’m also very concerned about what’s happening with our planet and our environments and what human activity is doing to them,” Hansen said. “And we are at a point where if we don’t change our behaviours and our attitudes, it will never be the same again because of global warming and climate change.”

Her biomorphic sculptures caught the attention of the Kelowna Art Gallery, and she was selected to have her new coral reef inspired installation called BRINK shown in the outdoor window of the building.

“I loved the idea of turning that window space into an aquarium, but I wanted to think of it from an environmental perspective. I thought about what would happen if we kill off the rest of our coral reefs and we destroy our oceans,” Hansen explained. “All that would be left is either things that we keep alive in tanks in an artificial environment or things that we make ourselves to represent something that is long gone.”

She hopes that her realistic and colourful display of a coral reef will attract people’s attention to make them think about the environment and encourage them to go inside the gallery.

“I feel very honoured and privileged to have my work in the Kelowna Art Gallery. It was an exciting day for me when I found out that I was one of the first artists to have a show in [The Glass Gallery].”

BRINK will be displayed until Jan. 16, 2022.