Banker Alicia Nathai-Achong gives up finance for blowtorch art

After 20 years as a banker, Alicia Nathai-Achong decided she was ready to devote herself to pursuing art and quit her job. So, she put down her pen and, instead of picking up a pencil or paintbrush, she grabbed a blowtorch and dived head-first into encaustic painting.

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, encaustic is the method of painting involving the use of a paint made from pigment mixed with melted beeswax and resin and, after application, fixed by heat. Encaustic is also what the “paint” is called.

The word encaustic comes from the Greek word enkaustikos meaning “to heat or burn in” so heat is used rather than a paintbrush. It was practised by Greek artists from the 5th century BC, but the most famous encaustic work are The Fayum portraits, funeral portraits painted in the first to third centuries AD by Greek painters in Egypt.

Nathai-Achong explained, “The paintings last for thousands of years so it’s an archival artform. The beeswax is a natural preservative of the pigments so that it retains its vibrant nature. So it’s something that you will pass on from generation to generation.”

She drops the melted encaustic onto her painting and uses a blowtorch to move the wax around and build the painting layer by layer. Since the wax is too heavy for canvas, she paints on wooden boards, or, if the piece is small enough, watercolour paper. Some of the larger pieces are about 20 pounds with about 30 layers of coloured wax.

Nathai-Achong’s passion for encaustic started entirely by chance.

“About two years ago, I saw a photo online of an encaustic painting. I don’t know what happened in my brain. I was just mesmerised by it. It was like nothing I had ever seen before.

“I started reading (about encaustic) excessively. I just wanted to know more and more about it so I read up on the history and how to make my own paints, and whatever I could find.”

When she thought she did enough research, she wanted to try it. Since encaustic is not available in TT, she made, and continues to make, her own paints using beeswax, crystalised tree sap and pigments including many natural pigments such as roucou and saffron root.

She reached out to local beekeepers for beeswax and convinced her husband, Richard Achong, to buy her a torch. She did her first piece and was hooked. She kept practising and experimenting and, when her family saw her work they were amazed by the beauty of this style of painting they had never seen before.

“I told my husband, ‘I think I want to do this every day for the rest of my life.’ And he said, ‘You are that good. This is stunning. I think you should. Just leave the bank and you do what you want to do.’ So I did, and I have painted in encaustic literally every single day since.”

Nathai-Achong told WMN she feels as if she had not expressed herself before and so has to do it every day. She wakes up early and cannot wait to go to her studio and begin working. And there, time flies without her realising it.

She said her plan was to work hard, hone her skills and be the best that she could be in encaustic. However, there was no one in TT who could help her learn, so she experimented and eventually made contact with other artists from around the world online where they share tips and assist each other.

Less than two years later, she is having her first art exhibition at Arnim’s Art Galleria in La Romaine called Discover Beauty in Simple Things: A Synthesis of Wax and Fire. All done within the past year, the 75 pieces will be available for viewing until December 18.

All this with absolutely no formal training or experience except for painting with watercolours and acrylic, which she has not touched since she picked up a blowtorch, with her two sons, as a hobby on weekends.

“For this exhibition, some days I slept maybe two or three hours because it’s my first exhibition and I really wanted TT to see the beauty of this artform. It’s so sad to me that it’s being lost. So I really put my heart and soul, everything I have into it.”

Her paintings are based on nature and include, sky, sea, and river scenes, landscapes as well as leaves.

“I’m a country girl at heart so I think it comes out in my work.”

Another source of inspiration is her home as she lives in Marabella, at the top of a hill, with her studio on her back porch overlooking the Gulf of Paria.

Nathai-Achong said she got her love of art from her mother, Lovinia Lalla-Nathai and her love of nature from her late father, Harold Nathai.

She said growing up in Rio Claro, her father had an estate and would carry his children to plant and pick fruits, provision and other produce. He would also take them to the beach where she developed a love for waves.

“You see a lot of waves in my work. When we were little, we couldn’t swim so dad used to hold us and take us way out. And he would swing us into each oncoming wave. Now I just love waves.”

Her artistic spark was developed by her mother who would do creative projects with her children including going to the river to collect stones to paint or making decorations for their Christmas tree.

“Even to cover our schoolbooks, some people would just put brown paper, a label and a sticker or something. No. In my home it was a production. We dyed the paper, used food colouring to make patterns, all kinds of fun things.”

With her life as inspiration, many of her pieces have stories behind them.

For example, Small Mercies shows stormy skies above a wide field with a lone carat shed in the frame.

“I remember growing up seeing these carat sheds. And when a storm was coming, the farmers would run to this little hut or carat shed. To them it was just such a small mercy to have on a rainy day.”

Included in her encaustic works, are other elements.

Nathai-Achong explained that she would sometimes carve into the surface of the encaustic using anything she could find to create the effect she is looking for. She also uses shellac, a resin made from the secretions of the lac insect, which she melts in alcohol to make paint and uses between encaustic layers.

In addition, she recently discovered eco-printing which is a technique that transfers plant colour and shape onto cloth.

“My mother is an avid gardener. She did a cutting from a yellow-bell tree and I found it was so beautiful but she was just going to throw it out. I told her no, I wanted to experiment.

“I wrapped it in watercolour paper and boiled it. The natural pigment embedded into the paper then I encased it in unpigmented encaustic medium. I have a painting in the exhibit with it. It’s so lovely.”

Since she is still experimenting with eco-print, there is only the one piece in the exhibit.

But, Nathai-Achong already has plans for another show next year and maybe her visitors will be able to see more then.