Written by: Laurenz Busch
Fire is always front-of-mind for artist Alicia Tormey. Not just as an element used to create her lush and layered encaustic paintings, but as part of her guiding creative philosophy. Tormey recalls working late one night on a painting when she became aware of smoke. Wildfires were burning in the region, and the smoke-filled air had finally made its way to her studio. In that moment, she realized that while she was in the process of bringing something rare and beautiful to life through fire, the same element was violently raging across a distant landscape, transforming everything in its path.
The Space Between Fragility & Resilience
That experience led her to explore the impact of wildfires and specifically the nature of pyrophytic plants, species that rely on fire, heat, and smoke in order to germinate and help rejuvenate fire-decimated areas. Inspired by her research, Tormey’s art makes the connection between this natural phenomenon and the development of her art, which also requires exposure to heat and fire to be transformed.
At first glance, Tormey’s encaustic works appear fragile and delicate. Petals float and colors bloom, webbed branching stretches across the surface, and a sense of weightlessness emerges. What isn’t visible in the finished work is the intense heat and the repeated burning and melting of her materials that is an essential aspect of her creative process. These seemingly harsh techniques stand in stark contrast to the resulting tranquil and ethereal images in her paintings.
“AS AN ARTIST, YOU GET VERY GOOD AT ACCEPTING CHANGE AS IT COMES. I CAN BE FOCUSED ON AN IDEA, AND THEN MY TORCH WILL SUDDENLY FLARE UP AND FORCE ME IN A NEW DIRECTION. IT’S A VERY FLUID AND EXCITING WAY TO CREATE.”
Tormey’s medium, encaustic, is a blend of beeswax, resin, and pigments. Once applied, each brushstroke is carefully fused with the flame of her torch, liquefied and reshaped by fire, before cooling down and solidifying into its final form. The process is laborious and unpredictable.
“As an artist, you get very good at accepting change as it comes,” she says. “I can be focused on an idea, and then my torch will suddenly flare up and force me in a new direction. It’s a very fluid and exciting way to create.”
In the space between fragility and resilience, Tormey’s work manages to strike a balance, simultaneously reflecting strength and beauty in a way that gives her work a unique emotional depth.
“We instinctively understand the powerful and destructive potential of fire,” she says. “But nature counters that with its ability to heal and regenerate. I believe we all have some form of pyrophytic abilities within us, able to reemerge and grow stronger from parts of ourselves only revealed after adversity.”
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