March 30 to April 17, 2022
Artist Statement
The works exhibited in Edith’s Album tell stories of lives lived, of places and objects.
Edith was my partner’s maternal Grandmother, a woman I never knew. When I came across her World War I-era photographs, I was inspired to imagine and create stories out of the opaque moments pictured there.
I combined images from Edith’s album with my own photographs of rust and peeling paint and with ephemera—book covers and pages, stamps, sewing patterns, recipe and postcards, music from old hymnals, and birch bark—all layered with encaustic medium.
Salvaged objects that Edith herself used find new life as substrates for the art: a washboard, a scrub brush, a lid from a wood cookstove, and a window. Pairing the photographs with the objects gives each a deeper significance.
My intention was to create contemporary paintings imbued with the past.
— Ruth Maude
Artist Talk
Encaustic Process Video
Artist Bio
Ruth Maude is a mixed media encaustic artist based in Toronto. Her work has been shown in solo and group shows throughout Ontario and is in private collections in Canada and the United States.
She paints with molten pigmented beeswax, this is an ancient medium called encaustic. Heat is used at every stage of the process to apply and fuse the medium.
Ruth’s creative practice is one of exploration and play. The founder of the popular All Things Encaustic blog, she is constantly experimenting with a variety of encaustic materials, techniques and tools and sharing her discoveries with her readers.
