Janise Yntema

About

Janise Yntema is an American abstract painter currently living and working in Brussels, Belgium. She works with the ancient technique of encaustic wax, a combination of beeswax, resin, and pigments in which heat serves as the active solvent. Education After studying at the Art Students League in New York, Yntema earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree from Parsons School of Design/The New York School in New York City in 1984. Technique Yntema applies natural beeswax and resin to wooden panels, using a blowtorch to seamlessly blend her brush strokes. With close attention to process, she creates images through slow and deliberate accumulations of semi-transparent layers of color. Light permeates these layers and becomes compositionally present. Heat invisibly dilutes, mixes, and binds each layer into a translucent luminous tone. The application and removal of material, in an additive/reductive process, allows unexpected moments to emerge in an alchemical dance between the directed and the uncontrolled. There is a sublime quality in her work as she creates an environment of diffused light that remains minimal and abstract. Inspiration Yntema's visual language is inspired by how light, perceived through pigment, creates space, combined with how perceptions of time can be retained through color. Her work references Postmodern Tonalism and questions the line between figuration and abstraction, suggesting a sense of place. Her paintings examine the larger reality of nature and life in contrast to what is perceived as real compared to the ideal. Artist’s Statement “ My works explore the perception of light as revealed through nuance of color, composing a space between the natural and the ideal. An environment of diffused light is created that remains minimal and abstract. I consider my subject to be light, and landscape its messenger, with changing transitions in color capturing reflected memories of small moments in time. ” Collections Her work is included in numerous publ