Every Painting Tells a Story

Stories Told Without Words

Someone posted a comment one of my painting videos. They said, '“Your paintings are not just drawings, they are stories hanging on walls told without words.” I love that and that is exactly right. People connect to the art because of the story it tells them. Or the painting could also remind them of their own story. We all connect to things for certain reasons. It’s not about making a perfect painting. It’s not even about the mediums I use. Creating art that invites connection is what it’s all about. I create to work out life. I paint scenes that make me feel good, or brings back a recent or far distant memory. Creating provides space in my mind to breathe.

Creating Connection Through Art

Painting opens the mind to possibilities. If you are creating openly and loose in your process and realize it’s not about you, but it’s about what the thing you create can do for someone else. How it could speak to someone. How it could help you work out a problem. We paint stories also by naming the painting with a title that could spark a thought. Someone people connect just looking at the image. Some people it’s about the colours the artist used, or the way the light hits the trees, or the texture of the flowers that reminds them of their grandmother’s garden.

Every Artist Is a Storyteller

For artists, painting stories is similar to how an author writes a book or a musician composes a song. We are all telling stories using our medium of choice.

Giselle Denis

Giselle Denis is an Alberta-based Canadian artist whose expressive landscapes celebrate the beauty and spirit of the natural world while inspiring hope. A recipient of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta Award of Excellence in the Arts, she creates paintings that capture not only the beauty of a place, but also the feeling of being immersed in it.

In addition to her studio practice, Giselle is an internationally recognized performance painter who has created live paintings before audiences across Canada and around the world. Highlights of her international career include a residency at the Raffles Hotel in Dubai, painting for the Canadian Embassy, the Special Olympics in Abu Dhabi, and representing Explore Edmonton in Québec City.

Her public artworks include Mother Nature, a 40-by-26-foot mural celebrating Alberta's forests and wildflowers in downtown Edmonton, just one block from Rogers Place, as well as two large-scale paintings at Strathcona Community Hospital.

For more than a decade, Giselle has combined her passion for art with philanthropy, helping charitable organizations raise more than $1 million through the sale of her original paintings. Her work has achieved record-breaking auction results, including the sale of a single painting for $50,000.

Giselle's contributions to the arts have also been recognized with the Queen Elizabeth II Platinum Jubilee Medal. Her work can be found in private, corporate, and public collections throughout Canada. She is proud to be represented by Avens Gallery.

Giselle often says she works out life through painting. Every brushstroke is a way of making sense of life itself. Through her work, she hopes to inspire others to slow down, reconnect with nature, and discover beauty, hope, and wonder in the world around them.

https://www.giselledenis.com
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