Elle MacLaren
Tragic Beauty
About Tragic Beauty
The accelerated melting of glaciers has been compared to a canary in a coal mine, a phenomenon that has become so huge that ignoring climate change is not acceptable. My response to this global crisis is represented in a series of paintings titled "Tragic Beauty", portraying the flow of multi-colored melting ice with encaustic wax. Pouring the melted wax creates the sensation of melting in action preserved as art.
The story of ice melting has been filmed, photographed, and written about often in recent times. I believe it is important to report this in as many ways as possible. We need to be disturbed and shaken up, our imaginations stirred with creative imagery. It is my intention and my choice of reporting to engage people using visual impact, to pull them in so that they might realize a deeper relationship with the natural world as it is rapidly shifting. The massive melting of ice flowing into a well-like shaft (a moulin) and the dark colors of water running through cracked ice are powerful images that reinforce what is happening to our planet. The events are tragic while the visual of the ice melting, the colors and motion, is beautiful.
-Elle MacLaren
Elle MacLaren Artist Talk
Elle MacLaren | Tragic Beauty
Elle MacLaren
Elle MacLaren grew up in Michigan and has been drawing ever since she could hold a pencil. She holds a BFA degree from Alma College. Elle lived and worked as a professional artist in Boulder, CO for 30 years. She began working in encaustic in 2005 and has employed it in her mixed media work. Elle has long been influenced by the colors and textures of the Southwest, especially New Mexico. She now lives and works in her studio in Santa Fe, New Mexico, as well as an Acutonics® sound healing practitioner. Elle is a member of the EAI, the IEA, and has a painting in the Encaustic Art Museum collection. She has been showing her work in galleries nationally since the 90s and won the Best in Show award for the IEA juried show “Poetry Bleeds Rust” in NYC in Oct. 2014. Elle is currently represented by GVG Contemporary in the Canyon Road art district in Santa Fe.