Barbara Brenner: Encaustic Painting
Barbara Brenner employs encaustic painting—a method involving heated beeswax medium to which colored pigments have been added. This molten mix is historically applied to a prepared wood surface. The oldest surviving encaustic panel paintings are the Romano-Egyptian Fayum mummy portraits from around 100-300 AD, a technique that was also common in ancient Greek and Roman painting and continued into early Byzantine iconography.
Surrounded by the open sky and lake at her home and studio, Brenner has created a unique flat rig fitted with heated lamps where she pours layers and layers of translucent wax, capturing and holding light and balance of the harmony and mystery in the endless sky. This setting, both sky above and earth below, grounds her, offering peace and harmony.
Inspirational Context
The exhibition's title, “The Sky Above the Earth Below,” draws inspiration from John P. Milton's 2006 book, which speaks to the healing energy of nature. For many, the sky above represents limitless potential and endless opportunities, while the earth below signifies feeling grounded and solid in our foundations.
In this time of uncertainty and unrest, we invite you to pause, breathe, and lose yourself for a moment in the beauty that these two artists and their works inhabit—the space of the sky above and the earth below, and all that lies between.
About M.David & Co.
M.David & Co. continues the tradition of Life on Mars Gallery (LOMG), which opened in October 2013 and closed in June 2016. During this period, Bushwick was perhaps the last Bohemian scene in New York and one of the painting capitals of the world.
Life on Mars Gallery, an artist-run gallery, reopened in 2017 as M.David & Co., reaffirming its commitment to painting and the continued and crucial relevance of the handmade in the age of new media and digital technology.
The gallery has had the honor of exhibiting and mounting one-person exhibitions with brilliant artists such as Todd Bienvenu, Farrell Brickhouse, Paul D'Agostino, Daniel John Gadd, Brenda Goodman, Arnold Mesches, and Fran O’Neill. A crucial component of Life on Mars also featured many thematically rigorous group exhibitions, such as "Outside In" and "Back to the Future," which championed the intergenerational bond between emerging artists, such as Yevgeniya Baras, EJ Hauser, and Matt Phillips, by pairing them with great vernacular artists like Thornton Dial, James Castle, The Quilters of Gee's Bend, and Purvis Young, as well as established master painters like Peter Acheson, Katherine Bradford, Bill Jensen, Chris Martin, Joyce Pensato, Amy Sillman, and Joan Snyder. Currently, M.David & Co. champions brilliant New York-based artists such as Astrid Dick, Ben Pritchard, and Mike Olin.