This painting by James Little elucidates the visually stunning material properties of Little’s career-long exploration of handmade painting mediums. Working in his New York studio, Little utilizes a method similar to the encaustic painting technique used by ancient Egyptian and Greek artists, blending handmade pigments and binders with hot beeswax. A time-consuming and elaborate process, it allows Little the agency to create completely distinctive hues from hand-ground pigments and custom binding ingredients.

The methodical nature with which he approaches the making of his own mediums is also evident in the laborious technique he uses to actually paint his paintings. His compositions take months, sometimes half a year to materialize. He lives with each layer for weeks at a time while it dries, formulating a deep understanding of the evolving relationships between the colors and shapes and patterns.

The encaustic paints Little manufactures in his studio have the capacity to last for centuries if properly cared for. The seemingly perfect flatness of the wax surface belies the multitude of layers Little builds up over the course of months while working on his paintings.

“I’m not cutting edge,” he says. “I’m just trying to stand up next to the great paintings of the past. It’s like building a building. The things that are going to make it stand are the same as they’ve always been. You have to have a solid foundation. I approach painting the same way.”