People & Places: Marybeth Rothman, Allison B. Cooke & Belen Millan
We close the chapter on the third round of our People & Places series with a look at the East, Midwest, and an international artist. Marybeth Rothman is known for her fictional biographies and abstract narratives utilizing orphaned, vintage photographs, digital photography, encaustic and mixed media. She lives and works in New Jersey. Allison B. Cooke lives and works in Wisconsin, where she has been teaching at the college level for over three decades. Her paintings celebrate the interplay of past and present, imagined and tangible, that which is lost and what remains. Our international artist spotlight is on artist Belen Millan. Belen was born in Granada, and now splits her time between Malaga and New York. Her “dynamic abstractions” address the interconnections of science and nature from her own perspective as a Spanish-American artist.
Marybeth Rothman, Syringa, 48" x 36", photo collage, archival pigmented print, encaustic and mixed media.
MARYBETH ROTHMAN / EAST
Marybeth Rothman was born in Taunton, MA, and earned a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design. Her portrait, Augusta was featured in the Ad Art 2020 exhibition, displayed on a monumental digital screen in the World Trade Center Oculus. Her most recent solo exhibition Reclaimed and Reimagined was on view at The Mark Gallery and Lichtundfire. She was selected to exhibit in The Billboard Creative among an international group of artists that included Marilyn Minter, Laurie Simmons, and Lawrence Weiner. Rothman exhibited in Ripped: The Allure of Collage at the Heckscher Museum of Art. She exhibited at both the Cape Cod Museum of Art and the Hunterdon Art Museum.
On working with encaustic...About 17 years ago, during a transitional period in my studio practice, I began to cut, collage, and layer my oil paintings. I discovered encaustic painting in a local workshop. I fell in love with encaustic the first moment I dipped paper in the medium. The transparentized paper sent me spinning. I found I could compose many layers with encaustic, imbedding materials into my work, creating a visual depth that is unique to this medium. When I returned to my studio, I boxed up my oils and never looked back.
After working alone in my studio with R&F paint for over a year, I had a growing list of questions. I purchased Joanne Mattera’s book, The Art of Encaustic Painting, and discovered a new world of encaustic applications. I needed to get some answers, so I took Joanne’s book and headed up to R&F. I had the great fortune to have a 1:1 weekend workshop with Cynthia Winika. My goal was to go through every page of Joanne’s book with Cynthia and try all of the techniques demonstrated. Cynthia was a very patient instructor. Almost 20 years later, I still love the scent of waxy paint warming up in my studio every day.
Allison B. Cooke, Quel Posto (That Place), 12” x 12”, oil, cold wax, and mixed media on panel.
ALLISON B. COOKE / MIDWEST
Throughout her thirty-year teaching career, Allison taught myriad drawing and painting studio courses at the Milwaukee Art Museum, the Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design (MIAD), and the Department of Art and Design at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Since 2007, she holds a position of Adjunct Professor for a summer study abroad program at the Santa Reparata International School of Art (SRISA) in Florence, Italy.
Allison is presently a full-time artist working in the Lincoln Warehouse in Milwaukee. She has an extensive national exhibition record spanning over three decades in galleries, regional museums, and alternative venues such as The Drawing Box, an international platform for the arts. Allison’s works are also found within public and private art collections in Germany, Japan, India, Ireland, and Italy.
On her process and use of R&F Pigment Sticks...My process-driven abstract paintings celebrate the interconnections of past and present, imagined and tangible, that which is lost and what remains. I am drawn to the physicality and evidence of the traces of time. The coalescence of aging architectural surfaces, effects from atmospheric conditions, and the suggestive nature of random marks are fascinating to me. While the fragments of ancient walls and fading frescoes in Italy are a particular passion, the visual phenomenon present in my everyday urban experience is just as inspirational.
Moving between painting, drawing, printmaking, and collage, I work with oil, cold wax, acrylic, gouache, inks, dry pigment, and an array of drawing media. R&F Pigment Sticks are a long time personal favorite. These densely pigmented sticks offer direct immediacy, luscious color, delicate transparency, rich opacity, and subtle glazing effects that greatly expand the palimpsest inherent in building layers. Ultimately, I am intrigued by the interplay of intention and chance in an experimental free-spirited studio practice with no preconceived notions of what may happen.
Belen Millan, Arterioles, 16" x 16", encaustic, tengucho paper, gauze, threads over wood.
BELEN MILLAN / SPAIN
Belen's home and studio practice is located in both Malaga, Spain and the Hudson Valley of New York. Her visual language reflects her multicultural background bringing together textures, patterns, and twists from the Mediterranean and her adopted New York. Her paintings, photographs, organic sculptures, and installations address processes of change in our own biology and environment. Her work reflects on the constant flow in nature between life and death, between the precarious organic equilibria in organisms, and the crises that give rise to their transformations.
On the possibilities of working with encaustic...I work with encaustic paint and love sculpting with it. I really like how versatile wax is with other materials; it can be combined with pretty much anything and there are no rules. I am attracted to how it affects my creative process. I tend to overthink and over plan my projects but once I am painting/sculpting with wax I let the process and the fluidity of the wax take over. R&F, for me, has been a great resource for technical advice. Their products have beautiful craftsmanship and I love their high pigmentation. I also like having the same color in wax and Pigment Stick, especially when I stretch a series from wood to paper to other surfaces.