Artwork Information

Lynda Benglis is best known for her dynamic poured paint, latex and polyurethane foam sculptures. Described as ‘frozen gestures’, they are like bodies or landscapes, evoking natural forms and elemental forces. In New Zealand for an artist’s residency in 1993, the primeval landscape of the Waiotapu

thermal valley inspired Benglis to revisit a process she had last used in the 1970s. These works are made rapidly, using repeated brushstrokes of hot pigmented beeswax like paint, the layers forming a richly textured surface topography. Like

Waiotapu’s volcanic processes, Benglis’s hot wax cools and congeals into striking formations.