I am a Hudson-based artist working in encaustic medium. Encaustic is known as hot wax painting, a form of painting that involves a heated beeswax to which colored pigments have been added. My encaustic work is always changing and evolving and the ability to work with beeswax is profound. I enjoy incorporating collage materials, photographs and found objects into the warm encaustic medium that offers me the ability to explore, layer, obscure, engrave and inlay. Beeswax is a very rich medium that I find close to my heart as a beekeeper: Bringing the fruits of nature to the canvas is a full circle of life.

My roots in art is as a plein air painter, however, over the last eight years I transferred my skills to encaustic art. People often ask me how I can do a plein air painting with wax? My plein air paintings are done with pigments sticks, graphite and ceracolors which includes wax and oils. My canvas is primed with several layers of wax from my hives before I enter the field. When the painting is finished, I return to the studio to work with the heat gun to blend color, shapes and texture.

I am a (NYFA) New York Foundation on the Arts MARK Artist and the recipient of the 2013 New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) Individual Artist Tier Award administered through the Community Arts Grants Fund (DEC) Decentralization Program for my photo encaustic documentary “The Forgotten Holocaust-A Family Story”. The twenty-piece encaustic documentary portrays the profound historical epic story of my family's journey of struggle, imprisonment and freedom from Eastern Poland in 1939 to deportation to a Siberian slave labor camp, their freedom and travel through Persia, Mexico and resettlement in the United States. The exhibit has traveled throughout New York State and featured in publications such as Metroland, Hill Country Observer, Times Union and cited in the North Light Book “The Art of Story Telling” released in November 2015.

Email: mkzincio@gmail.com