August 23 - September 22, 2019
Mitzi Humphrey– Another Way
Encaustic Painting
smallspace Gallery
Opening Reception
Friday, August 23, 2019
6:00 - 9:00 pm
Free and Open to the Public
Closing Artist Talk
Sunday, September 22, 2019
2:00 pm
Free and Open to the Public
Artist Statement
My exhibition Another Way includes experimental encaustic paintings, some of which relate to other mixed-media series which I continue to pursue, such as the "Elsewhere" and "Tantra" series.
I find the ancient medium of encaustic wax both delightfully playful and extraordinarily challenging. I use pigmented beeswax and resin on varied surfaces, such as found objects seen as sculptural forms or added to abstract collages or prints, scraped through or incised, in a true exploration of the hot flux/flow of techniques inherent in the medium.
Brief Biography
Born in Tennessee and raised in Indiana, Mitzi Humphrey earned a degree in Art Education with a minor in Fine Arts from the University of Tennessee. She was Art Director of the Knoxville Boys Club and taught art in Knoxville Public Schools. In South Carolina, she became a founder and director of the first Wofford College Art Gallery. In New Orleans, she worked as an assistant to the Chair of the Chemistry Department at Newcomb College. At Auburn University she began work on her MFA in British and American Literature, completing her thesis later before her family moved to Richmond. At the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts Robinson House studios, she studied silkscreen techniques with Marilyn Bevilaqua and used photography darkrooms there. She taught as an adjunct faculty member in the English Department at the University of Richmond for two years. She studied lithography at VCU with Barbara Tisserat, sculpture with Lester Van Winkle, painting with Morris Yarowsky, and etching with David Freed. She took additional printmaking instruction at the Richmond Printmaking Workshop when Laura Pharis was director. She earned her BFA from VCU in 1987, then returned to VCU Painting and Printmaking Department again and earned her MFA in 1997.
She was a founder of Artspace in its original locations at Shockoe Slip, Shockoe Bottom, and Broad Street and was a founder of Art6 on Broad Street. In addition to being a president of the Richmond Artists’ Association, she was a member of Women’s Caucus for Art, Franklin Furnace in NYC, One/Off Printmakers, and ISCA (International Society of Copier Artists), and exhibited extensively with those groups. She taught book art for the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts State Outreach Program and printmaking--including letterpress, collagraphs, and plexiglas monotypes-- for the Visual Arts Studio (formerly the Hand Workshop). She learned about the ancient art of encaustic painting in a History of Painting Technology class at VCU for which an assignment was to copy an Egyptian mummy portrait. She also studied with encaustic artists Suzanne Arnold and Lynda Ray.
She lives in Midlothian, Virginia with her husband, economist Thomas M. Humphrey, and maintains her Summer Wind Studio in their back yard. She had the studio built from a Home Depot two-level barn when she needed a workspace to keep her old Vandercook Letterpress.
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