Natomas artist Dianne Mattar has a mission when she paints: to bring her audience joy. To do so, she invariably layers her canvas with emotion. “I can just share what’s on my mind. There’re no limits, no restrictions, no right or wrong,” she says.
In her work, a seascape may be turbulent; a tree may be blown over. Each is simultaneously distressing and beautiful, she says, and reflective of the stock she puts in resilience. “For me, it’s an expression of my faith that trees get blown over. They get uprooted and yet they come back,” she explains. “It’s like there’s a calm after the storm.”
Mattar came to painting in her middle years, discovering an aptitude while recovering from an accident in 2000. She took a class through the Learning Exchange, which led to weekly studio gatherings with local artists Anne Bradley and Gretchen Ryan—both key mentors along the way, she says.
The first class was in watercolors. (“It has a mind of its own,” she says.) She has painted mainly in acrylics since then, her florals, landscapes and periodic travel scenes executed in a palette that is unabashedly bright and bold, and in a style that tends toward impressionistic.
Mattar says her art also fills an ulterior and faith-nourishing purpose: to serve. She spends much of her time volunteering in local schools, and frequently contributes paintings to local fundraisers and disaster relief efforts. Her work is on exhibit at American Visions Art Gallery in Folsom and Granite Bay, as well as at the Kennedy Gallery in midtown. Visit dmattar.com to learn more.
