Up Next in The Arts Station Gallery…

The Waggle Dance is the symbolic language honeybees use to communicate vital information. The bees use a dance to let other bees know the distance and direction of the food source from the hive. Erica Konrad has used the Waggle Dance as a metaphor, through encaustic paintings. To her these paintings represent how we maintain our sense of community through dialogue around topics such as the quality of water, wildlife sightings, local events etc… Creating conversation on vital issues connect us and ground us to a sense of place and community.

An integrated communication system, the Waggle Dance is deemed one of the seven wonders of the animal behaviour world. Consequently, Erica has created seven paintings representing dialogue, one diptych representing human connection and one honeycomb panel showing the Waggle Dance formation.

Erica’s primary medium is encaustic, a mixture of beeswax and tree sap with added pigments for colour. Dating back to 4th Century BC, encaustic comes from the Greek word, ‘encaustikos’, meaning “to burn in,” and refers to the process of fusing the layers of wax with a heat gun or propane torch. This luscious, engaging medium encourages dialogue between herself, the wax and the canvas. Mark-making, scraping, etching, adding, subtracting, layering, are the interplay, the elements of dialogue that occur when she paints. Working quickly while the wax heats and cools allows Erica’s intuitive mind to take over, creating an opportunity for the unexpected to reveal itself. Sharing this exchange, suggested through flow and preservation of the medium itself, is Erica’s attempt at the human version of the waggle dance.

Join Erica at her opening reception on Thursday, March 28 at 7 p.m. to see these amazing images, enjoy refreshments, and talk about art.

The exhibit continues until Tuesday, April 30.

For more information, contact The Arts Station at (250) 423-4842 or [email protected].

The Arts Station

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