Christin Zelenka
About Christin Zelenka
You can’t escape your birthplace, though you can use it for inspiration. I am drawn to fire and heat, coming from nature-infused, heat-driven Southern Louisiana. Currently, I use heat to create encaustic paintings on wood panels. The magic of nature is at the heart of my paintings. My subjects vary from insects, and birds, to human figures; which are painted on vellum with either gouache or oil. I bind each vellum painting with writing on the back. Sometimes the graphite writing is seen on the front in mirror form; other times they are hidden. The vellum paintings are encased on top of the backgrounds. I fuse three to five layers of encaustic medium, which gives my paintings a dreamlike quality. Depending on the message and atmosphere of certain pieces, I will add mica or other mixed media to the top layer.