Today we’d like to introduce you to Dan Diehl.
Hi Dan, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
My work as a creative is about my victory over fear and self-loathing. It is a celebration of survival in a world that seems so often determined to keep people like me silent. As a young teen, in 1974, I was sexually assaulted and threatened with death if I were ever to tell anyone “our little secret.” I fell mute; I literally couldn’t utter a word for weeks. The man was my sister’s boyfriend, a trusted doctor at Children’s Hospital in Detroit. He groomed me, insulated by his position of authority. After the assault he terrorized me for months after. I dissociated, haunted by fear and shame.
Later, as an adult, after years of therapy and turning my life over to a loving Christ, I felt called to break free of my lost innocence and “victimhood” by bringing light and vivid color into the world, transforming my fear and pain into beauty and light. That is when I dedicated my life to being the best artist I could become.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
CSA is a burden I have carried throughout my life. It has interfered with relationships, both personal and professional. I want your readers to know. The obstacles placed in my way have made me stronger and more determined to bring light and beauty back into the world. The world itself has become more hostile to the creative process. But I persevere because art is my calling, even when times are tough.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
To know about my work, you must first understand that my painting method and style is built on the classical painting traditions of Rembrandt, Velazquez, Hals and Sargent. Like these artists, I explore the subtle use of light as it interacts with form as a means of creating mood and achieving character and deep dive into the psyche and expression of my subjects. My use of broken color and bravado brushwork also distinguishes my style. I refer to myself as an Expressive Realist. A six-year-old said it best, “your painting is more real than real.”
I learned my method of painting from my father who learned from the revered Frank Riley, who taught America’s top realist painters in the 40s 50s and 60s the lost art of representationalism, during a period when abstract expressionism, and the Avant Gard was all the rage. My father held forth and passed his baton to me.
Can you tell us more about what you were like growing up?
Born in Detroit in 1959, I am the son of internationally renowned portrait artist Joseph Maniscalco, with whom I apprenticed during the early 1980’s. I spent much of my childhood sitting on my father’s lap while he painted at his easel. I learned much of what I know by osmosis.
I began taking on portrait commissions while putting myself through music school at Wayne State University. After graduation, I became active in the Detroit. My work was discovered by Buzz Harper, who became his patron and champion in the south. After a stent in New York City in New Orleans and returning to Detroit to run the Maniscalco Gallery and host the PBS TV show heartbeat I moved to Charleston South Carolina, where I currently reside.
Pricing:
- Fine art between $150 – $4,500
- Commission portraiture from $450 – $45,000
Contact Info:
- Website: https://maniscalcogallery.com
- Instagram: ManiscalcoGallery
- Facebook: Portraitartistrobertmaniscslco
- LinkedIn: Maniscalcogallery
- Youtube: Pointofart
