Just three years ago, Jan Dilenschneider sold her first painting. She recently participated in the Art Paris Art Fair at the Grand Palais, one of the most prestigious art shows in the world. Her work was a highlight of Galerie Pierre-Alain Challier’s exhibition.
This is an extraordinary achievement. Each spring the Grand Palais show is seen as the epicenter of contemporary art from post-World War II to the present. The fair attracted more than 50,000 people over a three-day period.
Prior to her participation in the Art Paris Art Fair, Dilenschneider had three solo shows at Galerie Pierre-Alain Challier, located in the historic Le Marais district, and a recent exhibition at the Bellarmine Museum at Fairfield University, the most popular show in the museum’s history. Her next solo exhibition is already scheduled for October at the Sill House Gallery at the Lyme Academy of Fine Arts in Connecticut.
Dilenschneider’s inspiration comes from the ever-changing landscape around her home on the Long Island Sound. Shore grasses bending in the breeze, blue skies reflected in the cool water and extraordinary trees silhouetted against green lawns all find their way on to her canvas. At times when she is driving, she immediately pulls over to photograph a spectacular sky or colorful vegetation. Nature in all of its transformations is an integral part of her work.
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She believes that no painting is created in a vacuum as we see multiple images and then allow our creative brain to go to work. To her, it is similar to dreaming as she conjures up colors, images, tensions and movement before approaching a canvas. It was the great Impressionist Manet who observed that 90 percent of painting occurs without a paint brush in one’s hand. When Dilenschneider finally begins to paint, she already perceives the outcome.
To Dilenschneider, painting is not only an intellectual activity, but a physical one as well. She takes deep breaths in front of a canvas and exercises her arms because she wants large, bold gestures, not small motions. A blank canvas never intimidates her, but in fact energizes her.
She often makes a small thumbnail sketch on the back of her canvas and then begins to play with colors, juxtapositioning complementary hues shooting up against each other to make them “sing” and “vibrate.” Then she transfers the ideas to the front of her canvas, essentially copying her vision from a two-inch format to 36 inches.
Gesture and color come together to create emotion, direction and passion. Dilenschneider achieves large, bold strokes across the canvas or softened edges through her innovative use of squeegees, spatulas, chopsticks or even her fingers. It is gesture that is the soul of her paintings, and color conveys their joy.
