Elements, the newest exhibit at the Austin-Bergstrom International Airport (AUS), includes painting “with gravelly texture, collages layered with translucent, water-like colors, leafy items frozen in motion and metal coins fused together in hot wax.”

Hot wax? The work of four Austin artists – Sharon Kyle Kuhn, Kristy Darnell Battani, Michelle Belto, and Jacqueline May – is included and each of them makes encaustic art;  paintings made by melting beeswax and using it as a pigment.

For example, in her piece, Rocky Road, Sharon Kyle Kuhn takes a bicycle wheel, a rustic heavy chain and decomposed granite to comment on bike travel.

The encaustic art exhibit is on display at Austin-Bergstrom International Airport through January 5, 2010, post-security,  in the Airside East Gallery, behind the Austin Article bookstore across from Gate 8.

While you’re there, don’t forget that Austin-Bergstrom has several performance venues in the airport and you can hear live music in the terminal every weekday. Here’s a link to the current schedule.