Encaustic wax painter expresses talent with “four-dimensional” sensory experience

Annie Johnson can often be found immersed in her latest project tucked away in her vibrant studio in Mt Melville. For many years, the Albany artist has experimented with different mediums such as acrylic, watercolour and oil painting until in 2015 she found her calling — a rare technique called encaustic wax painting. Originating from Roman times, encaustic wax painting is the process of heating beeswax with damar resin and paint pigment at a temperature of 105C before applying it to a surface. Johnson uses plywood as her form of canvas because of its absorbancy and rigidity. “Painting with the encaustic wax involves melting the encaustic coloured wax which has the paint pigment, beeswax and damar resin already mixed together,” Johnson said. “So what I normally do is heat up the wooden board with a heat gun and start laying the wax on with a natural bristle brush. “Each layer is heated up with a heat gun until it soaks in and once it cools I put the next layer on. “So it’s a building up of each layer and then I can also apply different techniques and colours, collage items in, carve into it or oil paint on the top surface ... lots of different things.” Born in the quaint country town of Three Springs, 313km north of Perth, Johnson has called Albany home for 14 years. Despite spending most of her adult life in Perth, Johnson considers herself a country person. “I’ve always done art in the past but once I got to Albany I started getting involved in the art community,” she said. “In 2015, (encaustic painter) Patricia Baldwin Seggebruch came from America to do a course at the Vancouver Arts Centre and I did a course with her for a couple of days. “I just got hooked because it’s completely different from normal painting and you can just do so much with it. “You can embed, collage, paint, draw, scrape into it.” She described her art form as a “hands-on organic process”. “It is a way of preserving and protecting layers of paint, paper and collage materials using wax,” she said. “It has a luscious feel and scent of beeswax which makes the painting very organic and pleases the senses.” This “four-dimensional” sensory experience gives the artist freedom. “The good thing about wax is you’re never quite sure once you apply the heat gun where the wax is going to go and what it’s going to do, so I always say it’s like a happy accident,” she said. “You think, oh, I didn’t really mean to do that but it actually came out looking better than I thought. “If you want to be more precise you can use a brush to manipulate it a bit more but I like the happy accidents. “By building up layers of colour, wax and texture the final layer is warm and shiny. “It reminds me of how we are made as people, layers of memories, culminating in a warm and shiny person on the outside.” An encaustic piece can have one layer or dozens of layered elements. While most of her work sits between eight and 10 layers, she has gone up to 108. Johnson said she found inspiration in the beauty of nature and the Great Southern landscape. “It’s funny — when I go away on holidays there are never any photos of people, it’s always the scenery,” she said. “My husband says can I get in a photo and I say no, no you’re in the way. I’m drawn to nature and of course Albany is surrounded by beautiful subject matters so it’s easy enough to find motivation.” Her next project is a piece inspired by the Northern Lights. “I’ve seen them recently, pre-COVID, which was amazing,” she said. “It’s quite spiritual and magical when you’re out in -15C near Finland in the complete dark.” One of the biggest challenges of being an artist was trusting yourself, she said. “We have this self-doubt that we’re not good enough and we try to think, now, what would someone like me to do so that I can sell it,” she said. “But that’s the worst thing you can do because it usually won’t work. “Unless you’re happy with the work you’re doing, it just doesn’t transfer properly so just do what you like and put your heart into it.”