Dani Weiser

Sep 4, 2009

Topic: Featured | Tags: , ,


The Art of Hip Hop took that place at the Knox last Friday was good, but Buffalo artist Dani Weiser was better. Not only did we get a great interview with one of the most beautiful European woman I’ve ever met, but we got some much needed help with our quest for advertisers! Dani is a full time makeup artist that’s worked with some of the best directors in the industry, and she’s currently exhibiting at all the tastiest restaurants in town. We highly suggest shooting Dani an email and taking her out for drinks. Let us know when, and we may show up with a recorder and do this all over again!

How did you get your start?

I started painting in LA about 9 years ago and actually I was pregnant at the time and just was bored, out of work, and not well. My first canvas was the green man in the hat, my favorite. I thought ‘wow, that looks really cool’. I think that’s where the whole men in hats idea came from. I was so in awe of that first painting that I’ve tried to replicate it, couldn’t and have never been able to do the same painting twice. I’ve sold paintings that I just loved and it’s killed me to sell them so I’ve tried over and over again to remake the same kind of thing and because its never happened, I’ve gone in all different sorts of directions.

Were you in total shock and awe that you could paint so well, or did you know at a young age that you had illustration skills?

I’m Dyslexic, so back in the 80’s I was considered “stupid” because they didn’t know what Dyslexia was. My Mother pushed me into acting and said, “You need a job to fall back onto. How about becoming a makeup artist?” So I did and I was good at it.

That’s a great, and still creative, career choice.

Right! It’s a tough field to break into and I lucked out by working with Director, Devon Dickson and then in 1989, got to work on a Paula Abdul Video, “Straight Up”. That was my first job as a professional in America, out in LA. She wasn’t that big back then and I was working in a make-up store when she came in with her hairstylist, started looking at makeup, then turned to me and asked if I would do it for her. I said OK without really knowing who she was at that time. Little did I know that the Director on that video was David Fincher, who’s now one of the biggest directors ever! I wish I stayed in contact, but it spiraled out from there. I had my foot in the door at that point. I stayed in LA for a while and worked with a bunch of Hollywood actors and on the set of 90210. I was in a movie actually, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, but if you blinked you’d miss me.

Anyways, about the painting – when I was out of work for a while, I bought some oil paints, messed around with them and after a while I stepped back and looked at the canvas. It looked like a man in a green hat, so I played on the notion of what was already there. That turned into what is my favorite painting. It hasn’t sold, it’s highly priced because its very dear to me and if you’re going to buy it, you’ve got to spend a lot of money.

So even after that painting, I still felt like I had no idea what I was doing. I still don’t know what I’m doing! It’s mental, it’s spiritual and it’s utterly dependent on where I am in my life at that time.

You were raised in France, lived in London, and all over the U.S. What is it about Buffalo?

It’s the people. That’s the short story of it. You can add New Zealand, Switzerland, Germany to that list, I just traveled a lot. I’ve always said a place is a place is a place so there are bad neighborhoods, good neighborhoods and everything in between, but it’s the people that make a place. The English aren’t the friendliest bunch, they don’t help you, they push you down, generally speaking. The French are snobbish, generally speaking, and it’s very hard to get anywhere there. It’s hard to make friends in LA and I didn’t make even one single friend in NYC. I’ve been here for two years and I never thought in my wildest dreams that I would have so many friends!

Also, when I was in Arizona I was totally miserable and had a complete breakdown and my only hope, literally, to survive, was to paint. For a year and a half I went into a zone! I could not stop, like a crazy woman, canvas after canvas, painting, painting, painting. Some depressing, some not depressing, some upbeat, sometimes I’d sit in front of a blank canvas all day. I didn’t want to waste the canvas, but when you paint something you don’t like when you’re low, the painting is a complete failure. So over about two years I made something like seventy paintings. When I moved to Buffalo, I completely and utterly fell in love with it and my style changed. It just fascinates me how your spirit can come right out onto the canvas. Everybody could tell I was happy – the colors were brighter, the themes were brighter. My stick men became happy!

I hear people complain that Buffalo is such a small town, be careful what you say because everyone knows each other, but I like that! So long as you’re not doing anything wrong, nobody can say anything bad about you. Great, talk about me! I love that the next time I see your husband, we’ll recognize each other. And the art – thousands of opportunities here!

When I was at LaTeeDa, there were some very geometric and abstract paintings mixed in. Is it a conscious effort to switch back and forth between styles? Do you use the same tools?

I did more abstract because people were liking them and they sell. I added more colors, gold, silvers. I’m really surprised I don’t see more paintings with metallics because with the right light, it just pops. I have my paintings now at LaTeeDa, Torches, Prime 490 and I’m trying to get into the Albright Knox.

I use oils and acrylics, and I’m not a trained artist, never went to school. I’m terribly afraid to go back to school and learn the right techniques because I’d look back at my work and say ‘oh my God, what was I thinking, I could have done it so much better’. I would end up hating all of these paintings that I love.

Can’t get enough of Dani? Us neither! Checkout her website, makeup portfolio, and a neat film about her by Full Circle Studios

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