Every Sunday, NEPA Creative turns the spotlight on some awesome creatives. This week, we have Kym Balthazar Fetsko!
A Pennsylvania Dutch country native, by way of Philly, Kym is a mixed media artist living in NEPA with her family and Boston Terriers: Roo & Jasper. She is an award-winning illustrator, graduating from the University of the Arts in 1995 with a BFA in Illustration.
After 20 years of freelance illustrating, Kym decided that the new decade was the perfect springboard to turn the focus of her artistic career from illustration to contemporary fine art. Little did she know the pandemic would give her the time to really explore the direction she wanted to take her art.
Kym alternates between painting with hot wax and cold wax. Her oil and cold wax abstracts combine mixed media, oil paint, and cold wax layered to create a grungy, rich surface. She then works back into the painting through the reductive process of scraping away layers with tools and solvents to achieve a greater depth that reveals the history of each painting’s journey … and then adds more layers. It’s the push and pull of creating an oil/cold wax piece that keeps her continually amused and excited to see the residue of accidental happenings by the time the final layer is applied.
Her encaustic (hot wax) paintings begin with an alcohol ink abstract and a vintage photograph that she combines into a digital collage. The collage is then printed onto archival paper, covered with several layers of encaustic wax medium, and then embellished with carving, oil paint and pigment sticks.
For both painting styles she finds her inspiration in moody old photographs and memorabilia, music, architecture, and the natural world that surrounds her.
To see more of Kym’s work, visit her website, follow her on Instagram, and on YouTube & Facebook.If you are interested in being featured as part of our Sunday Spotlight series, click here!
