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Community Corner

Darien Artist Jan Dilenschneider Reveals the Depth of Expression in Second Paris Exhibition

PARIS – For Jan Dilenschneider, the Darien artist whose second Paris exhibition opens at Galerie Pierre-Alain Challier, 8 Rue Debelleyme on July 8, it has been a year of growth and change since her successful Paris debut one year ago this summer.

 

“I am greatly influenced by living on Long Island Sound, where many subjects lie within a mile of my home – beautiful old trees, crystal blue water, elegant grasses, birds and great storms,” Dilenschneider says. “I see a painting in everything – spring green leaves against bright blue skies, or misty trees that fade to blue-gray.  The beauty of the world right outside my door is my inspiration.

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“My work is all about expression – expression played out in color and gesture. The colors play off of each other.  Sometime they blend, other times they ‘sing.’  That is, a lot of different noises or elements coming together to make up an even richer sound. The gesture is the freshness of the stroke. It gives direction and balance. It gives the emotional content. 

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“This year I experimented with a new creative process. I would start one painting, experiment on a second one to see of something worked. Ultimately, I would finish both canvases and call them a pair.  They stand alone, but can be shown together.” 

 

Dilenschneider is an artist concerned about our world and its people, an artist who puts a brush to canvas and connects life’s feelings and phenomena with an audience eager to experience and understand the emotion her painting evokes. She feels an obligation to this world, to highlight the damage being done by all of us to our surrounding environment. Her 2014 exhibition is thus entitled:

 

“IT IS A BEAUTIFUL WORLD; WHAT ARE WE DOING TO PROTECT IT?”

 

Jan realized that she wanted to highlight through her work the ecological damage done by all of us to our planet -- threatening our beautiful trees, rivers and vegetation. 

 

          Addressing such a personal obligation takes more than words, Dilenschneider says. “If words could say everything, there would be no need for painters.  Painting is expression, making visible my emotion, sharing that emotion without words -- only paint.”

 

Following the success of Dilenschneider’s showing last year of her still lifes and landscapes, Galerie Pierre-Alain Challier this year is devoting its main summer exhibition to her work. Of the 34 paintings to be shown, the publication Madame Figaro called them:

 

“Dynamic: Always connected with nature, her densely painted artworks seem to express perpetual motion. Somewhere between Tachism and Verismo, her waterscapes, grasses and fruit still lifes, energized by black and white stripes, present her vision of a whirling world, on the verge of – and ever closer to – abstraction.”

 

 

Mrs. Dilenschneider’s paintings will be on exhibition from July 8 through July 26 at Galerie Pierre-Alain Challier.

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