Rezension | Presse

December 2023

I'm thrilled to bring you the latest issue of "Wax Fusion" Fall 2023 and I'm so honored to be featured in this great online magazine. Many thanks to Kay Burnett and her team for this great opportunity to share my work.

Cover page "Mannequin in rust" and others on pages 32 - 47

Here you can find the online magazine

Wax Fusion Fall 2023

"Little Man - manikin" - Encaustic mixed media on wooden body, 100 x 70 cm

"explore | create | enjoy"

The artist Ursi Lysser from Aarwangen in Switzerland lives by this motto in her approach to her artistic forms of expression, techniques and fascinating realization. discovers, creates and has fun! She is not afraid to proceed according to the well-known principle of "learning by doing - and exploring" and this also corresponds to her artistic nature.

The first impression of Ursi Lysser's work "Little Man - manikin" is that of minimal art. Minimalism is also a recognized field in painting, with an emphatically simple yet imaginative choice of motif and form of representation. The second step is to look at the applied technique. Ursi Lysser, artistically trained in America, does not make it easy for us, as we are confronted with the difficult to master, rediscovered "encaustic".

What fascinates people about this very old painting technique? It was already used by the Greeks, Romans and Egyptians, so it can look back on over 3000 years of history. Even today, famous Egyptian mummy portraits and some very old Christian icons using the encaustic technique can still be found, are still well preserved and still have a unique radiance and freshness. The word encaustic comes from the Greek and means "to burn in, to heat with fire" and describes the technique in which (colored) wax is heated by red-hot iron and permanently applied to a painting surface such as plaster, canvas or wood.

We see a multi-layered wax painting (20-30 layers!) which is fixed with a Bunsen burner between the layers, in dry technique with wax over paper, with pigments, stencil, PanPastel and bitumen. When developing her encaustic painting, she does not work with an idea of how the painting must look in the end and accepts an immense amount of effort until the idea for the painting and the real painting are as the motif requires.

When the artist goes into her studio and picks up her utensils, she immerses herself in a fascinating, different world! This world is, of course, different from the one that surrounds her every day. It is also different from her inner world. Nor is it a mixture of the two. This "other" world is as real to her as any material world. And free, like thoughts and dreams!

Over the last 8 years she has experimented intensively with various other materials compatible with encaustic painting and can count herself among the leading artists in Europe.

She has now written the first German-language encaustic book and mainly teaches artists at home and abroad. The only message she wants to convey to artists is: Draw from the full and don't force the picture to be what you want it to be, but what the picture wants it to be.

Günter Weiler - Artist support

July 2020

With 40 artists from 10 countries, International Encaustic Artists presents "Vignettes in Wax and Words" - their first virtual exhibition - to a global audience. The exhibition, led by renowned encaustic artist Lora Murphy, will premiere on the International Encaustic Artists website on August 1, 2020. The exhibition can be viewed at

https://www.international-encaustic-artists.org/Vignettes-in-Wax-and-Words

International Encaustic Artists (IEA) is an association of artists who use wax (encaustic, cold wax or another wax-based medium) as the primary element in their work. The IEA is committed to supporting the growth and development of artists at all stages of their careers and providing opportunities and resources within a global community.

"Strangers" # 1 - 5

A group of 5 Torsos representing people who have left their home countries due to changes in their lives and circumstances. But as it often happens, they are not always welcome. I have lived in three different countries and have often felt this way. With my sculptures, I hope to encourage people to be open to all people.

These bodies are made of plaster bandages covered with wax, paper, oil paint and rust. The bodies are arranged in a wooden frame with a metal grid background.

Dimensions
44 x 32 x 12 centimeters