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Lapis Lazuli | Ground Study II (2024)
Encaustic wax, natural earth pigment and handmade organic gesso on 12oz cotton duck canvas
21 × 15 cm
Lapis Lazuli Study is a materially concentrated painting that draws upon the ancient resonance of blue as both pigment and symbol. Lapis lazuli, ground by hand and historically reserved for sacred and devotional painting, carries layered histories of trade, labour, reverence, and belief. In Renaissance art it was among the most precious pigments available, used with particular care for the robes of the Madonna, where its rarity conferred spiritual gravity and signified purity, protection, and the sanctity of the maternal bond.
That iconographic weight remains present here, not depicted, but held within the material itself.
The work begins with a hand-made organic gesso ground, built slowly in layers and allowed to fracture under natural tension. Natural earth pigments are worked into the surface, and encaustic wax is burned in, sealing and stabilising the ground while preserving its subtle fissures and shifts. Heat, pressure, and restraint shape the final surface, allowing the material to retain both vulnerability and strength.
Despite its modest scale, the painting holds a quiet intensity. The depth of blue reads simultaneously as mineral and atmosphere, absorbing and reflecting light, and inviting close, sustained looking. Lapis Lazuli | Ground Study II becomes a site where material, memory, and iconography converge; a surface that carries the sacred history of pigment while remaining grounded in the physical reality of earth, time, and touch.