Artist Spotlight: Wayne Montecalvo
Painter. Printmaker. Sculptor. Prop Maker. Videographer. Musician. Wayne's skills are abundant but it's his examination of art and life we've been taken by. Wayne received a BFA in Sculpture from the School of Visual Arts. His work has been widely exhibited and he has been an Artist-in-Residence at the Frans Masereel Center in Belgium, the Vermont Studio Center, Women’s Studio Workshop, the John Michael Kohler Arts in Industry Program, and the Awagami Paper Factory in Tokushima, Japan. We've known Wayne for a long time and are grateful he's part of the R&F family.
Wayne, how are you staying creative during COVID 19?
I’m getting a lot of stuff done during this shutdown. I like it. I’m doing things I have neglected for quite a while. I have time. I’ve been doing a lot of house repair, windows, sheetrock, yard work, but also being in the studio more than I otherwise would have time for. I think it’s all creative.
How important is the surface in your work?
I like this question. When I first started working with encaustic paint I was trying to keep the surface flat, pristine, and lump-free. I make my own panels, so there is always an issue with the surface being part of the project right from the beginning. However, these days, I like the texture you can get from encaustic paint. I like to leave marks made from the hand obvious, part of the work. I work in layers, so I’m not trying to camouflage any of that. My surfaces are fairly flat, but you can see where one element stops and another begins.
What other painters/photographers have influenced your work?
Les Krims, Hannah Wilke, Frank Owen, Judy Pfaff, Sean Sullivan, Carmen Lizardo, Cave Dogs, Leah Macdonald, Phyllis Galembo, and Mike Kelley. Some of these folks are well known, some are just friends, some are people I’ve worked with, some I’ve learned from, others I’ve worked for. Two of them I haven’t met or known personally. None of their artwork is similar to mine, but I like their approach to making art, the methods some of them use, the combination of materials, and I just like the work they come up with.
Can you share some of your favorite ways to combine encaustic with other mediums?
I like to combine things and see what happens. I bury some materials underneath a layer of thin paper and wax to make sure they stay put, especially certain materials that are either non-permanent or just don’t work well with wax. Some materials I’ve tried to use are India ink, alcohol, shellac, pepper, paprika, dye, paint. I use a lot of collage techniques.
I got interested in coffee stains a few years ago while I was in Japan, during a residency. I stain a lot of paper with coffee, sometimes it works, but it depends on the paper. I also like it when things don’t work. Then it becomes a challenge. Part of the problem working with digital imagery is that it is too planned out. So if I put something together and it looks like crap, then I need to get drastic and change the image into something new, something that I didn’t know was in my head. It makes things interesting. I don’t think it is possible to make a mistake on purpose, otherwise, it is not a mistake, but when they do happen, they are usually a welcome thing to work with.
Has the pandemic influenced your depiction of art? Does it generate new inspiration?
Most of the time, I make portraits. I’ve depended on using other people in one way or another in my artwork for a long time. Even when I was making videos or playing music a long time ago. Well, I still play music. But a lot of what I’m doing depends on photographing a person, and that option has been thrown out the window for now.
It made me rethink older images that I haven’t used, or at least try to come up with new ways to approach images of people that I’ve used a lot already. I’ve started using myself for some things, but I feel like I’m already too familiar with myself, I’ve already seen that face a million times. There are a bunch of options that should be explored. I prefer if my portraits aren’t really about the person or even a portrait at all but go beyond that to someplace else. I want them to go to a place where one might not consider the face as the main subject matter, or the person as the focus of the piece. It’s not an easy thing to do, I’m still trying to figure that out.
To what extent has your everyday life as an artist changed in quarantine?
Well, here’s the thing; I’m one of those artists whose work probably won’t sit well hanging above the sofa, or displayed in an office building. For a good part of the last few decades, I’ve had a day job. I was either working for some art department, teaching, or something. My latest incarnation has been as a prop builder. So now COVID 19 comes along and closes down Broadway. I’m lucky in a way. This pause has given me more time to make art and not worry about where it will go.
To see more of Wayne’s work, visit waynemontecalvo.com.
Keep painting!