BRICK, NJ — Jim Inzero leaned on the metal canister, trying to help limit the rocking and shimmying as the centrifuge inside spun around.
Inside, four frames from a beehive were spinning out the honey inside the combs built on them by honeybees, in a pair of apiaries on one of the roofs at Ocean University Medical Center in Brick.
Inzero, an artist who has an art gallery in Point Pleasant Beach, was at the hospital for an announcement of a collaboration between Ocean University Medical Center and himself, where the hospital will provide him beeswax that he will use to create paintings to be hung at the hospital.
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The collaboration is part of the hospital’s efforts to promote sustainability, said Ken Soucheck, the hospital’s vice president of operations and part of the sustainability committee.
Painting with hot beeswax — called the encaustic method — has been Inzero’s preferred medium for nearly 20 years.
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“I had been an architect, doing interior design,” Inzero said, a career he built for 15 years after graduating from the Maryland Institute College of Art. But his passion was art, and in 2004 he started pursuing it part-time, before moving to painting full-time in 2007, he said.
The encaustic method involves melting beeswax then mixing pigment into the melted wax, and applying it in multiple, thin coats until he achieves the look he is seeking.
“Some paintings have thousands of coats,” Inzero said, adding that he usually has multiple projects going at one time. The beauty of painting with wax is he does not have to wash his brushes; he can set them down and allow the wax to harden, then just melt the wax — and soften the brushes in the process — when he’s ready to pick up where he left off.
“No dried-out brushes that have to be thrown away,” he said.
His gallery is called Jim Inzero Gallery, at 502 Bay Ave. in Point Pleasant Beach, and it includes a range of seascapes and landscapes, with some abstract pieces for good measure. The gallery is next door to the Stella e Luna gift boutique, which he owns with his wife. Some of his works can be seen on his website and Instagram account as well.
Some of his work is part of the “Water, Water Everywhere” exhibit at the John F. Peto Studio Museum in Island Heights. The exhibit will be in place until Oct. 8.
Inzero said he doesn’t sketch out a picture before he paints it, instead just letting his inspiration guide him for many pieces.
“I just go for it,” he said.
Inzero also does commission work, with pieces painted to a customer’s wishes.
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One of the differences with encaustic painting is the observer can touch it, something Inzero encourages because it connects them to the art.
“The wax isn’t degraded by the oils and salt on your skin,” he said. The wax on the paintings has a higher melting point, of 160 degrees, so it won’t soften on hot days just from the air temperature.
Inzero, who grew up in Connecticut and moved to the Jersey Shore in 2001, sources most of his wax by purchasing wax pellets that have been purified.
“It’s easier to melt the pellets,” he said. “I’m able to paint in five minutes.”
The wax he will be getting from the hospital will be more raw, and will need to be processed to remove impurities. That means melting it and filtering it multiple times to remove heavy debris. The sustainability of it appealed to him, however, Inzero said.
While he has no plans to put an apiary of his own in his yard, Inzero said he does have a pollinator garden to help support the bees that support his art.
The gallery is open “by appointment or by chance,”with access through Stella e Luna, according to his website.
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