this year hbg has lost two of our incredible artists to cancer. katherine ace and brenda rehrig were both hugely creative souls whose passion for the arts ran deep. we first came upon katherine ace’s work on a trip to portland, oregon to visit the studio of gallery artist sherrie wolf around 2005. we were in awe of a painting in the hotel lobby where we were staying and when we arrived at sherrie’s home she had a similar painting in her entry. of course we immediatlely asked who painted the works and luckily for us it just happened to be one of sherrie’s dearest friends and contemporary katherine ace. katherine’s painting surfaces were very textural and unique for you never knew what you my find embedded in the paint. her work was very recognisable and had a style of it’s own just like brenda rehrig. another one of our artists john folsom recommended about 10 years ago for us to look at an atlanta artist who he said was amazing and her encaustic paintings were truly special. knowing we had an affinity for encaustic work we touched base with brenda immediately and were taken by her encaustic accretions. her paintings had a sculptural element to them that we had never seen before. brenda manipulated the wax to create a surface that undulated across the wood panel. her initial works were sometimes 6 to 8 inches deep closely resembling flowers. we will sorely miss being a witness to their creations. it was a joy to watch. our love and sympathy to both their families.

katherine ace

katherine ace was born in chicago in 1953, and fell in love with oil paint at the age of 10 at a summer children’s class at the art institute of chicago. she began painting in oils regularly at the age of 14, and through high school had a small space in the basement of her home where she painted several hours a day. ace went on to study art at knox college in galesburg, illinois, graduating in 1975.

after college ace had a series of art-related jobs started in new orleans, vermont and boston and then moved west – copying old masters paintings, working as a potter, doing graphics work and serving as a quick sketch artist in new orleans and casinos in reno, nv and lake tahoe, ca. she worked extensively on illustrations for text books producing a series of 16 books for rorke publishing and 36 portraits of composers for simon and shuster’s world of music. she also did many portrait commissions including the founding father of the oakland children’s hospital and the founders of the jelly belly corporation.

in january 1990 ace moved to portland, oregon where she has lived ever since, focusing on her own poetic paintings, which have been shown extensively across the country.

ace has always worked in her home, be it in garages, basements, kitchens, 8’x10’ bedroom in a double wide mobile home which she lived in also. in 1999 she added onto her shop/garage to make a large, light and truly functional studio.

katherine ace, self-portrait with phone, newspaper clippings, and show cards: 2019 painting “9 portraits,” now in the collections of the portland art museum.

“the intersection of contraries fascinates me: life and death; humor and tragedy; beauty and corruption; natural and constructed realities; experience and news. i am captivated by complex issues that we all face, and yet experience personally, intimately. i am interested in the role of dark feelings, thoughts and states of mind in the process of transformation. i am drawn to fire beneath reserve.

i think of painting as a dynamic process, expressing energy through the coupling of opposites. the raw canvas is both filled and completely empty. akin to dreaming, i begin with an image in mind but i am not clear how it will manifest. i do not derive my imagery from sleeping dreams but from my eyes, my imagination, my memory, as well as photography, historical references and chance. these together construct the “whole.” in process, i pursue a dynamic interaction between intuitive images, a sensual and physical handling of the paint, and the spirit or accident of the moment.

although stylistically i incorporate representation, paradoxically, i approach the canvas abstractly and employ gesture founded in abstract expressionism. i throw paint at the canvas and sculpt the surface using painting knives, nails, pins, bottle brushes, gold leaf, plastic, anything that is lying around. i work whatever my mood, and each piece combines the intentional with the accidental, the textured layers forming what becomes the body and flesh of the painting.

i am interested in complex story telling. figures and still lifes evolve as open ended metaphors/allegories for concepts and environments that are themselves also metaphors/allegories, and therefore fold, like fabric, time or paint, back in on themselves. like a poem, a painting is a surface. the depth is in the surface (oddly). it sort of dawns on you – like the way one remembers a dream sometimes, in fragments that float up all through the day, assembling themselves oddly, disturbingly…”

— katherine ace

our last exhibition for katherine ace in 2020 at hidell brooks

brenda rehrig

the greek term encaustikos refers to the process of adding the element of heat to a painting. an encaustic painting is created by melting beeswax and resin together and adding color pigments. multiple layers of wax are built up on top of a birch panel in reliefs. each layer is fused to the previous one through heat. the composition of colors and layers creates the optical effect of the piece.

the ancient technique of using molten beeswax dates back to the greeks, who caulked ship hulls and decorated warships with wax. during the first three centuries a.d. the process was used in egyptian mummy portraits. in spite of their fragile appearance encaustic paintings are extremely archival. the famous fayum funeral portraits, panel paintings of the coptic period, are well preserved and retained their brilliant colors through the centuries due to the protection of the wax.

born in pennsylvania, encaustic painter rehrig studied political science at kennesaw university and worked as a paralegal for 10 years. she then took pottery from a hobby to a profession, selling sculptures and functional pottery at art festivals throughout georgia. a former president of the georgia clay council, brenda rehrig was granted a fellowship in the hambidge centers creative residency program, where she encountered an encaustic artist and was utterly fascinated by this art form.

she began studying with critically-acclaimed new york encaustic artist michael david. encaustic accretion meaning the build-up of wax on surfaces takes a lot of skill. the learning process was frustrating at times. the average size of rehrigs paintings is 40 inches x 40 inches or larger, and she produces one piece at a time. inspired by her love and respect for the natural world, rehrig explores texture and luminosity by starting with a basic concept such as fog or water or sunrise and lets the colors guide her. “i am trying to get away as far as possible from pictorial art. through the use of certain colors i create a mood rather than a scene.”

“my work speaks of nature and the rhythms of nature. each painting begins with a color concept referencing an idea or a natural thing. the materials used are natural beeswax combined with resin and colorants applied to a wood substrate. this combination of materials is applied and fused over a long expanse of time, the buildup is a paradox of intention and chaos. i am deliberately looking for expression without the use of imagery.”

— brenda rehrig