by Kayla Barker

“Fusing together my realistic view of the world and parts of my imagination” is the opening tagline on my fine art website where viewers can see my photo encaustic artwork.

The word encaustic is a Greek word that means to ‘fuse or burn in.’ Encaustic is one of the most ancient forms of painting used by Greek artists from the 5th century B.C. They used this technique to paint funeral portraits. Before oil paint was created, encaustic paint was made with beeswax, resin and pigments. These painted scenes of mythology were used to color terra cotta structures and coat the sides of ships. The most famous ancient encaustic work is the Fayum funeral portraits painted by Greek painters in Egypt about 2,000 years ago. Encaustic is known as one of the oldest forms of preserving portraits and imagery.

For most of my life, I have been a photographer and preserver of imagery and memories. From taking photos on film as a teenager (and having triple prints made to share with friends), to scrapbooking my personal photos memories, to now having a wedding and portrait business for twelve years, I feel like preserving memories and history through photographs is just part of who I am as a person.

Seven years ago, when I was on a photography work trip, I was flipping through an old issue of Rangefinder and I read an article about the artist, Leah Macdonald and how she painted with hot beeswax and used encaustic to create works of art with her photographs. I was at the point of my business where I was starting to feel burnt out and had lost my creative spark and excitement I once had for photography that used to be just a hobby. I was shooting and editing like crazy, traveling all the time and I was looking for something to help me with the burn-out. I even considered taking down my whole website and just quitting photography all together! This was in the same year – 2013, that I decided to take the leap and purchase my first medium format film camera – the Contax 645 and start to incorporate film into my work.

I was immediately curious about photo encaustic and I wanted to give it a try. I googled articles and watched any YouTubes I could find, but back then, there wasn’t much of anything about how to apply encaustic to photographs.

I found an art studio about five hours away teaching encaustic and while I didn’t learn about how to apply it to photographs, I learned the basics of safety, how to heat and layer and collage with encaustic wax. I left that class thinking that it was the most fun and creative thing I had done in a long time. At home, I started experimenting with clear, hot wax on to my photographs.

The following year, I was able to take a workshop from the talented Leah MacDonald and learn more techniques about encaustic on photography and how to paint my photographs with oil paint and pigment sticks. Since that time, doing photo encaustic has been a therapeutic way to do something hands-on with my film photographs and create unique one of a kind works of art. I started by making small sized pieces on photo rag paper and photos mounted on wood board and would apply the hot encaustic wax medium, add texture, dimension and then enhance with oil paints.

Over time, my work has gotten bigger and more detailed. Some of my encaustic work shows my more dramatic, moody side by using motion blur, a dragged shutter, shooting pull apart Polaroids with messy edges and shooting black and white. My series, “Vulnerable” was one of the first series I started in 2014 that portraited the vulnerability of putting yourself out there as an artist.

I also use a lot of my film travel photography in my work as well. My biggest series to date, “European Summer” that will launch this summer has over thirty pieces of work, mostly large scale that are film photographs I took in France, Italy and Portugal over five years that capture the joy and essence of European beach vacations. I spent three years mounting, waxing and painting this huge collection.

Three years ago, we finished out our detached garage by painting it all white, adding skylights, proper ventilation and building large four foot by eight foot rolling tables so I could work much larger and have a dedicated space for my encaustic work. Being able to go out there and have some time to create for myself has become so important to me. I can tell a huge difference in my personal well being when I have time to create. With the pandemic of 2020 and the inability to travel and take in-person photos for awhile, I was still able to continue my work at home in my studio.

Over the years, I have taught several photo encaustic workshops. It has been so rewarding to see how photographers and artists take this medium and make it their own. I’ve had people from around the world who want to learn too. So, last year I finally filmed a full online video course with over twenty lessons so anyone could learn the art of photo encaustic from the comfort of their home. It’s everything I wish I could have found and learned when I first got started!

While my main focus of my business is still photography for my clients, I have loved having this art form to create and sell. There’s nothing like having someone purchase a piece of your art and have them hang it in their home. It is so rewarding. My mission is to bring joy and beauty to others and I love that people have connected with my encaustic art.

My Artist Statement on my website reads:
“My work is an expression of how I view the world. Small glimpses captured on film and forever documented in how they existed in that present time. Preserving a little piece of history through my lens, I work with film cameras, old and new, to photograph places and details that move me.
Through my work, I let the past continue to live on and evoke emotions in the viewer.
In my desire to preserve these memories even more, I use encaustic wax to preserve my photographs and other found items. Encaustic wax medium is an old form of painting and preserving and I use it to fuse together my realistic view of the world and parts of my imagination. I layer and distort the wax to bring texture, depth and feeling to my photographs and art. My desire is to take something that is flat and breathe life back into it through texture.
Just like life, my work is messy, imperfect and sometimes distorted, foggy and unclear, but that is what makes it real.”

I love that encaustic is one of most ancient ways of preserving imagery and I am using it to do the same with my film photographs now and create original works of art.

You can view my film photography on my website www.kaylabarker.com and see my encaustic artwork over on www.kaylabarkerfineart.com.

If you want to try photo encaustic for yourself, I have a free guide Eight Things You Need to Get Started in Photo Encaustic available for download at www.kaylabarkerfineart.com/course and you can learn more about my online video course, The Art of Photo Encaustic with Kayla Barker.

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Kayla Barker
Kayla Barker is an award-winning and published film photographer and educator based in Texas that travels around the world for her commissioned wedding, portrait and commercial work. Kayla uses film cameras, old and new, that range from $40 to $4,000 as her medium to photograph people, places and details that inspire her.

Kayla has also been an encaustic artist since 2013. Her artwork has been selected and won awards in dozens of juried shows and been purchased by collectors around the world.

Kayla is in The Knot Hall of Fame, winner in PDN’s TopKnots and nominated as an emerging film photographer by Belle Lumière. Her work has been featured in Martha Stewart Weddings, The Knot, Style Me Pretty, Brides, The Huffington Post, Buzzfeed and many more.

kaylabarker.com
kaylabarkerfineart.com
@kaylabarkerphoto

Photographs by Kayla Barker and Sarah Goss
Styling by Katy Bohls