Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Denise Dalzell. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Denise thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. What was the most important lesson/experience you had in a job that has helped you in your professional career?
I’ve learned from every job that I’ve had. From working in banking, or the movie theatre that I worked at while beginning college, I learned how to interact with a large variety of people.
I learned that everyone has a background, a story.
That people like to be heard. That in sharing my story, another person feel more free to tell theirs.
That we all have more in common than we realize.
Denise, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I am illustrative impressionistic painter. My main theme is interaction. I am interested in how we discover and interact with each other, often from within a crowd. I paint portraits of moments shared by couples, groups, and individuals in familiar and unfamiliar settings.
Being from a family full of photographers and visual artists, I was constantly drawing, painting, and playing with cameras. Once I was old enough to hang around all day, I would spend days at work with my father and grandfather, who were both cinematographers. I learned that stories are told from different points of view, and framing, color, and light are tools that illustrate a story. Hanging around soundstages was a big influence on me, and still impacts my work.
I have worked as a muralist, window artist, and graphic artist before deciding to paint full time in 2017. My first sales were in 2012-2014, but I took some time to realize that painting was what I loved and wanted to explore full time. I have been working with a few online galleries since 2018, and have sold over 60 paintings in the United States and internationally (I still feel that I’m just getting started).
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
For me, It’s the sense of connection between myself and someone who invests their time looking at and possible purchasing my work. A painting is my way of sharing my experiences and what I see in my travels and everyday life. Finding out that another person, maybe far enough away that I might not otherwise be able to communicate with, has had a similar experience, or also connects with a similar moment, is very rewarding .
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
When I first began painting full time, I placed too much emphasis on being precise. If every line wasn’t exactly perfect or if my perspective wasn’t just right, I worried too much that I wasn’t telling my story correctly and my painting wouldn’t be “correct”. As my style developed, I realized that my stories didn’t need to be perfect. An important part of how I present my stories is my technique. Where many artists that I know become more precise as they develop, my style has loosened up.
As my stye has loosened, it has become more me, more personal. That development has given me a better sense of how to illustrate the story that each of my paintings represent.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.denisedalzellatelier.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/denisedalzellatelier
- Youtube: @denisedalzellatelier664
- Other: https://dribbble.com/denisedalzell
