Encaustic Mixed Media | Melissa Stephens Art

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Melissa Stephens

Walnut Creek, CA

Encaustic Art & Classes

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ENCAUSTIC MIXED-MEDIA

Postcards from the Heart is the artist's reflection on meaningful and (sometimes) lost artforms such as hand written letters and her mother's quilt making.

A Bit of Cheer shows a bright red flower with a golden center off-set between two substrates. The petals are individually carved and filled with encaustic paint, and surrounded with delightful pearlescent circular heat stamps

Despite the Dark is reminiscent of a dark day where the sun is just a smudge in the sky, but the flowers bloom anyway. This painting is about hope and resliency.

Divergent Pathways is a large encaustic mixed-media painting revealing an abstracted mountainous landscape and a river in the foreground. A hand-drawn maze of man symbol and hand written messages were the artist's last layer conveying that life can be unpredictable despite our best intentions.

Globe Thistle Pond is a small painting suggesting a shallow body of water surrounded by wild flowers and weeds. Accretion makes this painting pop with great texture and bright happy hues.

Daily Remembrance is a thoughtfully designed encaustic collage painting. Thematically it deals with making each moment count.

Makaleha Morning is part of the artist's Hawaiian Mountains series, created after her trip to Kauai and Oahu.

Next to Near features a grouping of differently sized sphere that are interlinked with lines and a backdrop of Mexican bark paper. The painting reflects on how it is unnecessary to be physically next to someone to be close.

Chasing Clouds is a playful and brightly colored painting based on the artist's memories of laying on her back and watching clouds with her sister.

Arizona is a detailed and exaggerated painting of desert foliage based on Melissa's findings from a trip to Arizona in 2019.

Plausibility shows a roughed up white carved veil or net that loosely covers a pool of color. This is the artist's reaction to politics in 2020.

Stephens created this painting based on an earlier floral painting from 2016. This painting is 4x as large as the first and shows large red and pink blooms bursting from their leaves.

Hera's Gold tells the story about the Greek Goddess Hera and her relationship to peacocks. Hera is the goddess of marriage and the life of women.

Clearly Misconstrued is an oxymoronic title that, when paired with the rainbow text, and giant question, "WHAT?" comments on how people refuse to understand and then unfairly ostracize the LGBTQ community.

Heras' Sky tells the story about the Greek Goddess Hera and her relationship to peacocks. Hera is the goddess of marriage and the life of women.

CLVC is made of 3 encaustic paintings that reflect on Melissa's journal writings from 2005. She was exploring the idea behind abstract work made by a child vs. that made by an adult.

Seize the Day is an abstract landscape of mountains surrounding a deep lake. The mountains are murkily reflected in the water, and the sun is rising - just starting to clear the clouds. The mantra "seize the day" is hand written vertically across the diptych in a way that integrates with the rest of the scene. Metallic string is embedded across both substrates.

Eventide is part of Melissa's Mediterranean Series that donates 20% of sales to The Ocean CleanUp Project.

Fire Moon contains rust and crushed apricot seeds that build into the accretion and other texture encircling the burnt orange sun reminiscent of the 2021
fires in California.

Of This Earth is unique in that the two parts are mounted on museum glass to reveal a background that changes depending on where it is hanging. Texture abounds with paint on Sequoia bark and birch board with embedded features.

Edges and Curves III is from an older series focused on how landscapes mimic human form, and nature repeats itself in form and function.

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