2011-08-04 / Rutland News
Local artist stumbles into creative profession
Denyse Dar wasn’t always a painter.Only a year ago, Dar picked up a paintbrush just to have some fun, and ended up creating unique paintings of the town of Rutland and other areas close to her heart.
“I was staying at home with my three kids and I just did it to kind of escape,” she said. “It was such a good outlet for me. I enjoyed it.”
Growing up in Rutland, Dar said she could not wait to get out of town. “I think that happens with a lot of kids,” she said. Dar spent time in Florida, where she attended college and majored in art and computers, combining the two to create a Computer Graphics degree. Dar then lived in Holland, and after a while had a feeling in her stomach, she said, that she should go home.
Five years ago, Dar returned to Rutland and has lived there with her three children since – something she hadn’t fully intended to do. She had been looking at houses closer to the Boston area, but found one for sale in Rutland that she “just knew” was the right one.
“It was just meant to be,” Dar said. “There’s no place like home.”
This attitude is reflected in Dar’s artwork. “What comes through in the paintings is just how much I love this place. I wouldn’t live anywhere else.” Many of Dar’s paintings showcase well-known buildings and landmarks in the Wachusett area, such as Mount Wachusett, the Rutland Common, Princeton Common, and the Mountainside Market in Princeton- which will host Dar’s first gallery showing on Saturday, Aug. 6.
Dar said she was surprised by how well her artwork has spread and been recognized.
“There are two communities in the art world,” she explained. “There is Art with a ‘capital A’ and then other types of artwork that are often and wrongly seen as less.”
Dar’s work is known as “Naïve art,” which classifies art that comes from someone with no formal art training or someone who defies traditional art training.
“This is just doodling,” she said. “[This is] being goofy.” Dar thought galleries would scoff at her paintings because they weren’t what she considered art. She is happy her artwork has been recognized.
“The whole thing has taken on a life of its own,” she said. “I just posted them on Facebook. People watch my page now.” Dar added that all the attention is “a little intimidating” but that she is growing into it.
Dar said her first showing on Saturday will be a test to determine what she will do in the future. She would like to continue painting, and travel to new places to paint their scenery as well. She has started painting some scenes from Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard, and hopes to continue.
“It seems like a lot of people who see my paintings, it makes them happy.happy I enjoy that,”that ” she said, adding that she received an email from one woman who said Dar’s paintings made her want to ‘roll down a hill and laugh like a goon.”
“What I’ve painted is what I feel,” Dar said. “The art’s grown a lot and so has my selfconfidence.”
Dar’s art show, “DARing Color,” at Mountainside Market in Princeton, will take place Saturday, Aug. 6, 3-5 p.m. Complimentary wine will be served, and Dar said the event will be “offbeat and fun.” For more information, visit objectdar.com.
Great depth of field on this one and as always, marvelous colors. I like how you swirled the sky...coool.
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