When Lisa Danesin was a young girl she would sometimes find herself in trouble for doing what she loved.
“I was that kid in school who was always getting in trouble for drawing on her desk,” Danesin recalled. “I was the one who had to stay after school and scrub her desk off.”
Although the days of drawing on desks are long gone, Danesin’s love for drawing and creating has followed her throughout her life as an award-winning professional artist.
“My life has always revolved around art, which is pretty cool because not everybody gets to follow exactly what they want to do,” she said.
Two of her abstract pieces, Before and Nocturne, are currently on display at the downtown Nanaimo Art Gallery as part of the Nanaimo chapter of the Federation of Canadian Artists’ Coastal Expressions exhibition and sale, which runs until Sept. 6.
“I am sort of like a jack-of-all-trades,” Danesin said. “I work in very representational art. That’s my background, but I also go over to the abstract side.”
Coastal Expressions also features a number of artists from the Nanaimo chapter and all of the artwork in the show was selected by a jury of three signature members of the FCA.
Danesin was born in Sidney, B.C., but was raised in the Harbour City and knew early on that she would become an artist.
“I was handing assignments with little doodles down the margins,” the former John Barsby Secondary School student said. “I was always going to be an artist.There wasn’t even any question about it.”
As an artist, Danesin, who graduated from the University of Victoria with a degree in fine arts, enjoys working with a variety of mediums including watercolours and large format abstracts in acrylic.
“For me they are very organic,” Danesin explained about her abstract work. “Some abstracts are geometric and I am not a very geometric person.”
For a full display of Danesin’s artwork, please visit www.silverdog.ca and for more information on Coastal Expressions, visit www.nanaimoartgallery.com.
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