After 20 years as a banker, Alicia Nathai-Achong decided she was ready to devote herself to pursuing art and quit her job. So, she put down her pen and, instead of picking up a pencil or paintbrush, she grabbed a blowtorch and dived head-first into encaustic painting.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, encaustic is the method of painting involving the use of a paint made from pigment mixed with melted beeswax and resin and, after application, fixed by heat. Encaustic is also what the “paint” is called.
The word encaustic comes from the Greek word enkaustikos meaning “to heat or burn in” so heat is used rather than a paintbrush. It was practised by Greek artists from the 5th century BC, but the most famous encaustic work are The Fayum portraits, funeral portraits painted in the first to third centuries AD by Greek painters in Egypt.
Nathai-Achong explained, “The paintings last for thousands of years so it’s an archival artform. The beeswax is a natural preservative of the pigments so that it retains its vibrant nature. So it’s something that you will pass on from generation to generation.”
She drops the melted encaustic onto her painting and uses a blowtorch to move the wax around and build the painting layer by layer. Since the wax is too heavy for canvas, she paints on wooden boards, or, if the piece is small enough, watercolour paper. Some of the larger pieces are about 20 pounds with about 30 layers of coloured wax.
Nathai-Achong’s passion for encaustic started entirely by chance.
[caption id="attachment_929193" align="alignnone" width="683"] Alicia Nathai-Achong learnt how to use a blowtorch to apply heat to resin for painting. - PHOTO BY MARVIN HAMILTON[/caption]
“About two years ago, I saw a photo online of an encaustic painting. I don’t know what happened in my brain. I was just mesmerised by it. It was like nothing I had ever seen before.
“I started reading (about encaustic) excessively. I just wanted to know more and more about it so I read up on the history and how to make my own paints, and whatever I could find.”
When she thought she did enough research, she wanted to try it. Since encaustic is not available in TT, she made, and continues to make, her own paints using beeswax, crystalised tree sap and pigments including many natural pigments such as roucou and saffron root.
She reached out to local beekeepers for beeswax and convinced her husband, Richard Achong, to buy her a torch. She did her first piece and was hooked. She kept practising and experimenting and, when her family saw her work they were amazed by the beauty of this style of painting they had never seen before.
[caption id="attachment_929195" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Paintings by Alicia Nathai-Achong. - PHOTO BY MARVIN HAMILTONwra[/caption]
“I told my husband, ‘I think I want to do this every day for the rest of my life.’ And he said, ‘You are that good. This is stunning. I think you should. Just leave the bank and you do what you want to do.’ So I did, and I have painted in encaustic literally e
