Pat Dicas
Artists Incorporated Art Gallery, located in the “Little Red Barn” on Morgan Drive in Vestavia Hills, displays work from more than 50 local artists. On the first Friday of each month, the public is invited to a Featured Artist reception to enjoy refreshments and meet the artists. This month’s featured artist is Pat Dicas.
Tell us a little bit about yourself.
I am one of the founding directors of Artists Incorporated, an intriguing gallery of fine art right here in Vestavia. I came to Alabama from California, where in our scientific family, physicists were regular visitors at the breakfast table. Alabama is very rich in tradition.
Describe what type of art you do.
I am an oil painter. I love the colors and flexibility of the oil paint and the way working with brushes on canvas sings up my arm. The work of Renoir and John Singer Sargent inspired me to paint family life and portraits, and that is my primary work. Body language, the “presence” of a person, is what captures me.
Where does your inspiration come from?
It comes from somewhere else. It falls from the sky. It comes in a flash. It is sudden and surprising. It connects human beings from cave paintings to what is yet to come. We study the ones we call “the Masters” to learn how to translate this and then [in the end], each artist must step forward, alone, to try.
What do you enjoy the most about creating your art?
The artist begins, but somewhere in the process there comes a magical moment when the painting takes on a life of its own. It tells the artist what to do, as the work becomes itself. One never knows when this moment will come, but it always does and is always intensely joyful.
What is the greatest compliment you have ever received about your work?
Once, a couple bought one of my paintings as a gift for their mother. They later told me that when the mother became very ill, she asked that the painting be brought to the hospital so that she could look at it and be comforted by its colors. I cannot imagine a higher compliment.
