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Where Light and Shadow Embrace
Written By: Donna Rhodes | Issue: July 2023
Annell Metsker’s subtle fusion of color, lines and texture gives her subjects a dreamlike essence.
Annell Metsker’s magical spirit lives where light and shadow embrace.
It’s there she breathes Nature’s essence into inspiring revelations, by layering digital images with oils, cold wax, and encaustic wax in a variety of combinations on canvas and birchwood panels. Her fusion of figures, textures, colors, line, space, and rhythmic movement coupled with an intuitive approach, sets her work apart, high above the ordinary.
Annell’s favorite subjects are landscapes, Monet-esque waterlilies with arched garden bridges, family groups, children, grandkids, brides, and pets (living and passed). Sometimes her pieces are realistic.
More often, they are impressionistic, expressionistic, or abstract.
She says, “I integrate encaustic wax with traditional landscape panoramas using an impressionistic approach. Since I started in Photography (decades ago), people say my style reminds them of Monet. When I did the piece shown here, I worked from a photo I took in Monet’s garden, a scene that touched me deeply.
“With oils, cold wax, and encaustics my style has moved more toward abstract (an outgrowth of impressionism). When heating pigmented wax with a blow torch, edges soften, giving the work an impressionistic look, a tribute to my fascination with Monet and Renoir. They are at the core of my style’s inspiration.”
You can see Annell’s oil and cold wax abstracts locally at Whiteside Gallery. She also has work at The Bascom Gift Shop: landscapes and abstracts with oil and cold wax. The wax gives the paint a richer texture, more body, beautiful color and a soft sheen. Taken care of, it can last centuries.
If you’re curious about her portrait process, Annell offers this synopsis: “I paint portraits digitally on a tablet, using photographs as a base. I work with a program that gives my work a hand-brushed oil-look. I paint with a variety of computer brushes and an oil medium. I print the final image on canvas. After it cures, I paint wet oils on top of the canvas to add depth to the highlights and shadows. Finally, I put a texture over the whole painting. And then I frame it.”
While Annell enjoys photography, her commission-focus is on painting, concentrating on portraits (people and pets), landscapes, and abstracts.
Visit her website at annell.com, or call (704) 996-0559.
