Dana Brook's encaustic art excites new visitors at show

By JACQUE HILLMAN

Upstairs at The Dickson Gallery of Fine Art in downtown Jackson is an "Enchanted Forest." Kids want to stand in front of it, stare at it, and dream about that forest.

There's also an encaustic painting titled "Cold Mountain" for $195 that spoke to its buyers at a new show titled "Finesse: A Journey in Encaustic Art" by Jackson artist Dana Brooks that opened Nov. 30 during Fabulous Friday. About 100 visitors toured the gallery through the evening. The show will be featured through Saturday.

Brooks Neely, 10, who is home-schooled, has studied art before with Brooks and was enthralled. "Boy, they're her creations!" he said.

"It's colorful and creative," added Blake Monroe, 10, who has taken art for five years from Brooks at Faith Tutorial at West Jackson Baptist Church. "She's pretty good."

"Miss Dana is a very good teacher," added Sheryl Monroe, Blake's mom. "She's very encouraging to the kids."

It's been an interesting journey for the artist, who began studying encaustic art, in which she uses melted wax in many colors to achieve a three-dimensional effect.

She explained that encaustic art was done by some of the Old Masters. "They got it to the point that they would do sculpture with the wax and you can still see encaustic art in Europe today. It's usually flatter than what I did. The possibilities I've seen are limitless and this is something I'm going to keep working with."

She said when she was melting the wax she used melting irons, heat guns, "the stove ... whatever source of heat I needed to melt the wax. I dropped and threw it to get the result I was looking for. I was very satisfied with the pieces that came out."

"I was really excited about the turnout for the opening reception," said artist Dana Brooks. "I want people who buy my art to love my art, and I want it to be affordable so people can buy it. As an artist, I want my art to bless their space, to enrich their lives, to help them feel good."

Brooks said she kept getting comments from visitors that they could see the emotion in each piece. "That's true. My heart and soul is in each one. When I started taking them down and carrying them to the gallery, I cried. I was really surprised I acted that way."

Brooks had plenty of support from family. Her mother, Bettie Fleeman, drove down from Dexter, Mo., and her sister and sister-in-law were there as well.

"I don't know anything about art except when I see something I like it," said Fleeman. "Dana says that's permissible." She added, "Dana does not get her artistic talent from me." Fleeman said her interests lie in researching and writing on genealogy.

Also touring during the show was a group from Leadership University sponsored by the Jackson Chamber of Commerce. They were attending to experience cultural art events in Jackson.

"I didn't know this was here," said Marshall Seals, 17, a student at University School of Jackson, about the Dickson Gallery of Fine Art and its exhibits.

Claudia Velasco, 16, a student at Madison Academic, added, "I want more people to know about the galleries and about what's here."

Other students in the group included Zach Floyd, 16, who attends Trinity Christian Academy; Allison Spray, 16, and Sara Mitchell, 17, who both attend Liberty Magnet School.

Joyce and Eleazar Kapurnan were admiring "Enchanted Forest" along with their daughter Elisa, 5, who also takes art with Dana Brooks.

"Her work is very unique and very pretty," said Joyce Kapurnan of Brooks' art. She said she and her husband are interested in buying the work.

Gallery owner Rachel Dickson said the show has been a hit with the people who attended the reception and those who have come by since then.

"Everybody who has come to the gallery and looked at the show has been taken aback by the medium itself, and the colors and that's really fun to watch happen," said Dickson, gallery owner.

"There's a big trend - an attraction - to abstract art. People like it because it's different," she added.

Dickson said that gallery visitors have commented "Dana really put a lot of energy into this work."

"It is a great show and she's destined for great things. Encaustics is a new up-and-coming thing. The color speaks to people. It evokes emotions. But she also had black and white in the show. I realized when I saw all of it that we're going to sell a lot of this work. It's in every color, every size and it's affordably priced. We've sold five pieces, which is very good for an art show."