Wax

The Wachsbilder [Wax Pictures] are wax paintings with colour pigments that are applied to wooden panels – most of them quadratic – measuring 0.5 bis 5 cm in thickness. Weyermann exhibited the pictures in multi-part series. When the works are hung side by side their serial quality is reminiscent of Stacks (1967) by Donald Judd, yet at the same time they also reject Judd’s affinity with monotonous, industrially finished products. The ancient technique of encaustic painting allows the production process to become visible by revealing the brushstrokes, squeegee traces, entrapped paintbrush hairs, scratching and scraping, and coats of paint. The various stages of overpainting with the previous layers of paint peeping through suggests an iconoclastic attempt to cover the encaustic portrait of a saint as an act of liberation.