Home Is Where the Art Is: Dara Engler
Dara Engler received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting from the University of New Hampshire and her Master of Fine Arts degree from Indiana University, Bloomington. She was awarded a Joan Mitchell Foundation MFA Grant, followed by a recipient group show at the Cue Art Foundation in New York, NY. Dara has been included in New American Paintings and Manifest’s International Drawing Annual and has received fellowships to attend the Vermont Studio Center, Millay Colony and Saltonstall Foundation residencies. Her work has been shown nationally in galleries and museums, including her most recent solo exhibition at the Gatewood Gallery at the University of North Carolina, in Greensboro. She teaches painting and drawing at Ithaca College.
TRUMANSBURG, NY: Dara Engler reached out to MOLLY+FRIENDS from Trumansburg, New York, where she continues to work in her home studio and gain inspiration from her natural surroundings while social distancing:
My daily "get started" ritual is coffee in front of the piece I'm working on while listening to radio news, then decanting my mineral spirits in my own particularly neurotic way. I'm most productive in the studio listening to my dance party playlists. They keep me energized.
My studio is an outbuilding behind my house, so that hasn't changed since the pandemic. What inspires me most about my workspace is the the view out my windows. There's a small patch of woods behind my studio teaming with deer, birds, groundhogs and even a family of foxes.
Left; “How To Catch A Deer,” Oil and Charcoal on Canvas. Right: The woods located behind Dara’s studio
She discussed her connection to the solitary adventurer at the forefront of her work, who can be seen attempting to tackle the wild and, symbolically, life’s challenges:
My paintings are portraits of an alter ego, often rooted in exaggerations of my own experiences. Their loose narratives are allegorical, embracing human foible and the humor that comes with it. As the only human in her world, my pirate-y anti-hero is full of curiosity and combative reverence for her natural environment. She is tracking animals, building shelters, and learning to tie nets. Despite her adventurous nature, the pirate is subject to an awkward and fumbling learning curve. As in any allegory, her trials are emblematic of our daily struggles.
Both the process and subject of my work have always related escapism and solitude. By painting this character, I have prevented myself from becoming her. The current state of the world and the stresses that come with it have turned my process and subject into a refuge, not an escape. It’s been a chance to indulge in, instead of combat escapist tendencies making the work less fiction and more fact.
Left: “Pirate Wrestles an Alligator,” Oil and Charcoal on Canvas. Right: “Pirate Doesn’t Go Swimming,” Oil and Charcoal on Canvas
In addition to painting, Dara has been incorporating alternative mediums into her practice- sourced from both the wilderness and the web:
I have also been experimenting with sculptural needle felting dead animals and their guts and have started making pen and ink postcards of cabins in the woods from Realtor.com. I imagine they are postcards to myself, from myself in the alternate escapist universe in which I moved to an isolated cabin. Then I knit the ugly comforting afghan that would exist in that cabin. Those are new projects that are in their infancy…
It is part of my ritual to have a side experiment incase I need a break from paint and because I feel all of it has an underlying theme of escapism.
A postcard and Afghan from Dara’s new project
To learn more about Dara Engler, visit her website www.daraengler.com