Internationally-acclaimed artist Dan Schlesinger has announced the date for his Autumn 2008 solo exhibition. The show will be held from 2 to 7pm on Sunday, September 28, 2008 at the artist’s studio at 15 Onslow Road in Richmond.

Schlesinger’s new work features a large series of oil paintings depicting lotus blossoms and water lilies. These flowers captured the artist’s imagination when he toured the renowned botanical garden in Mauritius. This is the first time that Schlesinger has painted flowers in oils.

Ayli Lapkoff, Schlesinger’s agent, points of that “Dan has built an enviable reputation through his treatment of the natural world and his love of the exotic. It’s not surprising that his imagination would be strongly sparked by the unusual beauty of these flowers.” Schlesinger explains that “What makes lotus flowers such an exquisite creation of nature is the fact that, first, their environment is water, so in paintings them one has the opportunity to capture the interplay between the flower and its reflection in water. Also it’s not just the flower that is so striking, but the leaf itself is varied, alive and almost overpoweringly beautiful.”

Another group of new paintings depicts a moonlit autumn night with a view of fields. In those works, Schlesinger restricts himself to a tight palette of golds, coppers and olives in order to conjure a darkly luminous mood. In order to achieve this effect, the artist explains that he “mixed other painting media with the oils to give the oils an almost diaphanous effect.”

Schlesinger has exhibited widely both in the U.K. and internationally, with dozens of solo exhibitions and in venues as prestigious as the Walker Galleries, the Medici Gallery, Courcoux and Courcoux and the Mall Galleries. He is also beloved for his illustration work, including the drawings in the best-selling Japanese edition of the Harry Potter series.

The new paintings can be previewed, and invitations to the exhibition can be requested on Schlesinger’s website www.danschlesingerart.com.

Posted: 09|2|08 at 9:45 am. Filed under: Fine Art News.