Spinozablue: An Eclectic Journal of the Arts

When I stum­bled on oil pas­tels sev­eral years ago after not hav­ing had any for­mal back­ground or train­ing in art, I sur­pris­ingly found myself enjoy­ing work­ing strictly in this medium. I am most intrigued not only by its tex­ture, flu­id­ity, and vibrancy of colour but also with the dimen­sion and depth which can be read­ily achieved through sim­ple hand and fin­ger smudg­ing. In this way, being so closely con­nected phys­i­cally with the paper, I find myself able to become even more deeply immersed in the work.

Ingénue, by Desi Di Nardo

Sev­eral of my favourite artists include Leonardo da Vinci, Tamara de Lem­picka, and the Group of Seven artists. My great­est influ­ence, how­ever, is Edgar Degas mainly because of his dis­cern­ing eye for the human form and his mas­ter­ful por­trayal of move­ment in dance mode. After tak­ing clas­si­cal bal­let at the National Bal­let School of Canada for some years, I became very inter­ested in the ele­ments of speed, grace, and strength – all aspects very much part of the rig­or­ous and demand­ing dance.

Anon, by Desi Di Nardo.

I am also quite fas­ci­nated by Degas’ abil­ity to intensely con­cen­trate so many of his paint­ings and draw­ings on a pas­sion and love for another art form, that being bal­let. It is almost as if the two means feed off each other to form a mutual rap­port – each stim­u­lat­ing and enliven­ing the other for its own sep­a­rate growth.

Arabesque, by Desi Di Nardo

I expect this is true in my per­sonal expe­ri­ence as well, as art is really only a small indul­gence that often­times acts as an out­let too with the off­shoot ben­e­fit of pro­vid­ing inspi­ra­tion and focus for my writ­ing career. In fact, much of what I write con­tains sim­i­lar under­tones which exist in my paint­ings as the recur­ring themes of nature, spir­i­tu­al­ity, and human­ity are present in both.  

–Desi Di Nardo

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Desi Di Nardo’s work has been pub­lished in numer­ous North Amer­i­can and inter­na­tional jour­nals and antholo­gies, per­formed at the National Arts Cen­tre, fea­tured in Poetry on the Way on the Toronto Tran­sit Com­mis­sion, selected by Canada’s Par­lia­men­tary Poet Lau­re­ate, and dis­played in the Offi­cial Res­i­dences of Canada. See www​.desid​i​nardo​.com

Copy­right ©2008, Desi Di Nardo and Spin­oz­ablue. All Rights Reserved.

Related Posts

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