Your Custom Text Here
Susan Wallis
Encaustic painter/Curator
Susan Wallis is a graduate from the Unversity of Toronto with a Bachelor of Art and Art History, along with a certificate in Design from Sheridan College. Orignally from Toronto, Wallis has resided in the County now for close to 20 years.
Her choice of medium is encaustic painting. This ancient medium is historically known due to the Egyptian Fayum mummy portraits in beeswax. Together with the frescoes and objects of Pompeii and Herculaneum, these encaustic paintings are among the best preserved art from ancient times. The encaustic medium provides her with the colour virtuosity of oil with the quick dryingness indicative of acrylic. The best of both worlds. The process is the combination of molten wax with oil pigment. The labour intensive medium provides great texture, luminosity and endless opportunities for experimentation.
Wallis believes that a painting should depict the the act of seeing, not the merely the object seen. She allows her subject matter, the Canadian landscape to pass through her veil of self in order to be realized as art. This process (when done well) can transfix, transcend and transport the observer elsewhere.
Wallis opened Melt Studio & Gallery in June of 2021 with the support of her husband Glen Wallis and her daughter, Artist and Art handler & Installer, Vanessa Rieger.
Wallis curates all art shows at the gallery and enjoys meeting new artists. Learning about and supporting other artists in their art practices provides Wallis with endless inspiration. Wallis has also put aisde a room in her gallery dedicated to supporting new and emerging artists of any age.
Susan will be having a solo show this Summer at Melt Gallery called
Pages from the Studio from August 21st –September 21, 2025.
Opening Reception August 23rd 1-4 pm.
Susan Wallis’ work is on permanent display at the gallery. To see more of her work go to our online SHOP.
“My 2025 solo show, Pages from the Studio is not a retrospective in the traditional sense, but rather a gathering of visual chapters—works drawn from across the years that speak to recurring themes, shifting moods, and evolving techniques.
In sharing these pieces together for the first time, I invite you to walk through my visual journal. To turn the pages not just of my work, but of the years I’ve spent in dialogue with wax, flame, and time.”