About Irene

 “The artist never entirely knows — We guess. We may be wrong, but we take leap after leap in the dark” ~Agnes de Mille


I was born and raised in Switzerland and moved to the North West of BC Canada in 1995. At first, I felt a sense of being lost in the vastness of this big beautiful country. I learned to embrace the quiet beauty of the land and now it gives me the inspiration and the time I need to reflect on my daily walks through the hills and valleys of the beautiful Peace River Region.

      

 Growing up I was the happiest child when I got a box of brand new pencil crayons and a coloring book. Did you ever notice how wonderful these new wooden pencils smell? Even nowadays I am taken back to my childhood when I open a new box of these wonderful colours. I can’t help but smell them!

It was about nine years ago, when I came across encaustic for the first time. A card created with wax and the iron was given to me from a cousin in Switzerland. I was hooked! I did some research and ordered my first supplies.

Since then I took several workshops with well known encaustic artists and learned a lot more about the process of painting with wax.

To me working with wax is relaxing, satisfying, fascinating and yes, sometimes frustrating and challenging but I love it.

I fell in love with the versatility and vibrancy of that medium and at the same time there is a luminosity that only wax can have. And of course you can’t beat the wonderful smell of it!