<  c&crs artists statement “The visual attraction of the work is the strategy used to engage the viewer, as it is initially through the form of the art work that the dialogue is established. Our fundamental perceptual faculties and cognitive interpretations are confronted. Fixity is revealed as illusory.” Marlena Novak's work explores areas where “a priori concepts influence the accuracy of cognition - the implications of realising that ‘seeing is not believing’.” Physically, her traditional practice of encaustic painting (the suspension of pigments in hot wax) requires extreme physical endurance with zen-like concentration and precision. “Working with liquid at over 160 degrees Fahrenheit and equipped with gas mask and heat-resistant gloves, her studio resembles an alchemist’s laboratory.” Computer-generated video installations, combining live components of music and text, dramatically transform ideas embodied in her traditional practice into the digital medium. Novak creates the geometric images directly in the computer and animates, frame by frame, multiple aspects of the image through space and time. biography images video		“Ultimately, I intend the social impact of my work to be felt through its induction of destabilizing or stabilizing our perceptual mechanism, since it is within the boundaries of our perceptual framework that we interpret and act within the world.” personal account to follow