Artist featured at Gardnerville gallery

Artistic Viewpoints will be having an artist reception for the artist of the month, Denise Mancour, 5-7 p.m. Tuesday at the gallery, 1368 Highway 395, Building B in Gardnerville.

Mancour, a resident of Lake Tahoe in the summer and La Quinta, Calif., in the winter derives her work from her surroundings.

"The mountains and the desert are incredible and I am blessed with the best of both worlds," Mancour said. "My aim is not true-to-life realism or to 'recreate' what has been done to perfection but to respond to those feelings of beauty, to share what is felt in my heart."

Mancour's style is contemporary with a touch of the orient. Music also inspires her work. She loves to listen to music while she paints.

"The flow of the music inspires the color, form, line and texture," said Mancour. "I also enjoy learning the techniques of artists from the past. They have inspired the elegance found in the figure series and in my oil paintings on linen. We all observe things so differently and I enjoy painting variations on a theme as demonstrated in the 'Leaves' series," she said.

Mancour works with oil on paper which gives her control of the fine details in her impressionistic artwork.

"Oil on paper dries quickly which allows me to detail with pen and ink. This technique provides the flow and openness not found in canvas oil paintings," she said. "The 'Leaves' series is painted on a flat canvas (not stretched) on which I create wonderful texture and detail with pen and ink."

Her more formal paintings are created on linen and she plans to experiment with oil on silk in the future. Pencil is another medium she enjoys because of its versatility and texture. She often uses pencil to create the lines and soft edges of her figure drawings.

Limited edition gicleé prints are available of some of her work and her art may be seen all month at Artistic Viewpoints. For more information, call Bill or Teri Sweeney at 783-0633.