Denise McNeill
By Hilary Peach
It’s a dreary, rain-soaked night in downtown
Nanaimo, but Denise MacNeill’s storefront gallery is brightly lit, and even
from the street the walls resonate with the deep greens of westcoast forest
scenes and the searing reds of some of her abstracts. The artist is in.
Sporting black leather boots and multi-hued
pigtails, MacNeill radiates a contagious energy as she describes her paintings,
which are of two distinct styles. One wall of the showroom displays the solid
trunks of firs and hemlocks as they might be glimpsed through the windows of a
remote cabin. These substantial stands of forest seem to sway and shift,
responding, perhaps, to the wind, or to McNeill’s swift vertical brush strokes.
“I like to paint fast,” she explains. “ I never worry about what I’ll paint next, or if an idea will be there. I always have so many ideas. I just pick up my brush and start painting—big brush strokes, you know?” Known for her portraits of arbutus trees, and now captivated by firs, she goes on to explain that the forest scenes are influenced by spending hours walking through her favorite Nanaimo parks, which include Westwood Lake and Buttertubs Marsh.
Another inspiration for the forest scenes was
Denise MacNeill’s father, John, who died in March of this year at the age of
90. A retired mining engineer with a great love of the outdoors and a passion
for painting, John MacNeill was mentor, business partner, and colleague to his
daughter. The two MacNeills ran the Public Hanging Art Gallery in Nanaimo’s Old
Quarter together for five years.
“We mentored each other,”
says Denise, and while she misses his critiques, she says his recent passing
was a transformative and moving experience, and has prompted her to “want to be
a better Canadian artist.”
Sharply contrasted to her forest scenes are
MacNeill’s abstract paintings. Some, inspired by the beach and the movements of
the tides, are mosaic-like compositions of turquoise, blue and green shiny
objects arranged haphazardly on textured backgrounds. Other, more sizable,
paintings are drenched with deep reds overlaid with geometric shapes or small
animal figures.
“I’m very experimental,” explains MacNeill. “I like
to take a little painting, or a part of a painting, and blow it up—paint it
much bigger. Or shrink a bigger one down. See this?” she asks, indicating a
heavily textured canvas in yellows, reds, and white inlaid with gold leaf,
“Doesn’t that look Spanish? See the bull? Those are his horns, and those are
his eyes, and that’s the matador’s veronica.” The painting is called Matador.
“I always name my paintings after they’re finished,” the artist explains, “when
I can see what they are.”
Denise MacNeill is looking forward to a move from
the little downtown gallery to a large, new art studio designed and built by
her husband, Rome. “It’s perfect” she says, “He’s a virgo.” As well as serving
as a gallery space for her bold and colourful paintings and mosaic work, the
900 square-foot studio (at 1868 Meredith Road) will also be a working
multi-purpose studio. With a planned opening in January, MacNeill intends to
hold classes in painting with acrylics, mosaic work, jewelry-making, and
creating handmade cards. MacNeill has been teaching beginner and advanced
classes for more than 15 years through Parks and Recreation and other agencies,
and is looking forward to leading her students in her own, more permanent
teaching space. Her message to her students is “don’t be afraid to get your
hands dirty, and be sure to have fun.”
You can almost hear the artist’s synapses snapping
as she jumps from one idea to the next, as though there isn’t enough time to
describe all the things she wants to do. As well as working in the gallery and
pursuing her art practice, she has two other jobs—as a prep cook in a local restaurant
and, for over a decade, teaching painting through a day program for
developmentally disabled adults. As well as facilitating art classes for the
developmentally challenged, MacNeill has organized showcases of these students’
works, raising public awareness of their unique and varied styles.
A painter of 15 years with a background in commercial art, fine arts, weaving, and crafts, MacNeill has been creating things for as long as she can remember. These days she works in various materials including paper, gold leaf, and found objects, bringing elements of collage to some of her pieces. She is also a believer in “seasonal art—that you can hang Christmas art at Christmas,” and is developing an appealing variety of small poinsettia paintings of fuchsia and gold, and a subsequent line of handcrafted cards for the approaching season.
Although she hasn’t yet
developed a line of Halloween-specific art, MacNeill did celebrate the
completion of her new studio building with a Zombie party. “I want to have lots
of parties in the new space,” she says. “ Painting parties, for groups, or for
special events. Like for a birthday party you come over with a group of people,
and I serve wine and hors d’oeuvres, so it’s fun, right? It’s a party. And
everyone gets a canvas, and the paints, and I supply everything you need. You
don’t need to buy anything. And I give a demo, and then everyone paints a
painting. It’s like a movie party, but you’re painting. And it’ll be really
affordable.”
As mysterious as where she gets the endless supply
of ideas is where she gets the energy, but rest assured that Denise MacNeill’s
new working studio and gallery space will be humming with activity in January.
For information on upcoming classes in painting with acrylics, working in mosaic, jewelry and card making, contact Denise MacNeill directly at 250-756-1148.
