Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Daniel J. Belisle. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Daniel J. thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

Growing up, I never considered myself much of an artist really. I always like to draw, though I figured so did everyone else, right? It’s when I found myself painting outside of a formal school setting for the first time that art was something I was actually seriously interested in as an “adult,” but at this point I was already in college and art school was never on my radar until years after I already graduated with a non-art degree. However, it was through a few early casual encounters with friends when I fully opened my eyes to art and began my journey as an artist. I was still living with my parents at the time, so I had to work at a small desk in my bedroom and make do with the space that I had. My first paintings were very basic. A sun and a couple of clouds, all colors straight from the bottle without mixing. I had a natural instinct for color palettes, but it basically stopped there. Over the course of the following 14 or so years I would develop a voice in abstract expressionism by way of action painting and focusing on process. As a self-taught artist, I have to be very creative with how I do learn. I try to study color palettes found throughout blips of everyday life wherever I can find them– advertisements, art books, television, nature. Social media and outlets such as YouTube are also very good resources when it comes to looking for inspiration and education. I also study other artists, both famous and otherwise in hopes to try and get an idea of what they were trying to achieve in a given piece of work. A lot of my earlier work is inspired by Jackson Pollock, though I would say I like artists from all across the board, such as Salvador Dali and Andy Warhol. Although I would consider myself an abstract expressionist painter, I recently started trying my hand at realism.

The quality of work comes from years and years of practice, experimentation, trying, failing and trying again. For a long time I would use whatever materials I could get my hands on for the least amount of money possible. I have countless paintings that were made on broken pieces of furniture, recycled advertisements and other miscellaneous found objects. I was also constantly experimenting using different utensils, brush strokes and ways to physically apply the paint. A lot of my work is composed of mixed media of various types– acrylics, spray paint, nail polish, etc. — while the process itself contains just as much analysis of the composition as it does the application itself.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

I think society can best support artists by placing a greater cultural importance on the arts overall. Today’s world is overrun by a small number of entertainment giants & social media platforms that essentially dictate what kind of art can be seen & consumed. If society as a whole placed a greater value on art as it was during other times in history such as the Renaissance or Enlightenment than I believe we could only benefit. Society needs to rely less on what social media accounts are popular and shift that focus to getting people into public art spaces instead. Art creates an opportunity for expression when traditional avenues may not be available and can have the ability to change the way people view the world.

Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?

While NFTs may hold value to some, I personally think art is best experienced in person. There is simply a different feeling art evokes when one is able to view a painting from multiple angles and really get up close to try and figure out what was going on in the mind of the painter. It allows the viewer to really see different brush strokes and get the full experience of a painting. As the world shifts to a more virtual experience, NFTs only make sense, but it gets to a point where they can feel more like advertisements rather than works of art themselves.

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.danieljbelisle.com
• Instagram: @daniel.j.belisle
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/daniel.j.belisle

Image Credits
Artist photos by Sarah Wallace All other photos by Daniel J. Belisle