Self-taught artist Laura Moriarty‘s sculptural paintings appear like long lost geodes, geological mysteries layered with multi-colored rings. The asymmetrical pieces reference the earth not only in their appearance but also their process, as Moriarty heats and cools pigmented beeswax in a way that references erosion, weathering, and subduction.

“Layers of color form the strata of a methodology in which the immediacy of the hand can translate a sense of deep time,” said Moriarty in her artist statement. “Working and reworking molten, richly pigmented beeswax, I build each painting/object through a slow, simple yet strenuous physical engagement, which often becomes a metaphor for the ephemerality of life and civilization.”

Moriarty’s work is included in the group exhibition A Stratigraphic Fiction at the Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art in Collegeville, PA through March 19, 2017. You can see more of her work on Artspace and Instagram.