HARGRAVE works in "encaustic" which is a medium or technique of painting with molten wax, resin and pigments that are fused after application into a continuous layer, and fixed to a support with heat. After operating her own ceramics studio in Seattle for a number of years, she found a correlation between working with clay and encaustic—clay being fired in a kiln, while wax, resin and pigment are fused with a torch. Clay describes qualities of durability and plasticity, and it has the ability to record spontaneous mark-making, while wax naturally lends itself to optics and communicates through its fragile translucency. HARGRAVE'S transition in material usage is coalesced by the fact that clay and wax are both crafted and formed by fire, and the animate nature of the materials is seductive.

HARGRAVE is influenced by the architecture of "all things natural." Her abstractions stem from some of the oldest known life forms —leaves, vines, blooms and fruit—which are "grown" into the wax. Inlaying into carved lines, seductively beautiful tendrils leave trails of blue-black. These vein-like incisions speak to the gentle curve of vertebra, a subject matter that continues to captivate HARGRAVE.

Visual seduction in art, as in nature, is often comprised of pleasing colors, shapes, textures and patterns, and is often used at the service of aesthetic content. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that HARGRAVE'S work is unapologetically beautiful. HARGRAVE reveals her subjects with a luminous, almost mystical detail, but never tells the specifics of their setting. Instead, her blossoms and pods shimmer between layers of wax, taking on the particulars of the natural world while creating a tension that holds the paintings somewhere between the abstract and the articulate.

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