Artist paints colorful characters all over OKC
Denise Duong maintains a fanciful flock of imaginary friends, and she doesn't care who knows it.
Rather, shep last ers her charming cast of adventurers, explorers and observers on posters and parking garages, splashes them on paintings and pins and even takes them down not-so-dark alleyways.
“Somebody asked me the other day like `what are you doing tonight?' And I was like … `Tonight, I'm gonna have to hang out with my make-believe friends at the studio ,'” she said with a laugh. “It's fun to see other people hang out with them, like people sharing pictures of the Lyric Theatre wall or the Film Row piece.”
Art l overs don't have to look too far or hard to see Du on g' s whimsical figures around Oklahoma City these days. They're greeting theatergoers heading to a show at Lyric at the Plaza, they're towering 40 feet high on the west and south sides of the West Village parking
garage on Sheridan Avenue, and they're even loitering in the ladies' room of The Paseo Plunge multi-use center.
As the featured artist of the 2019 Paseo Arts Festival, Duong, who is proprietor of the district's Little D Gallery, also created a playful design featuring the Paseo's distinctive buildings and colorful characters for the festival's T-shirts and posters.
A Memorial Day weekend tradition, the 43 rd annual Paseo Arts Festival is Saturday through Monday in the Paseo Arts District.
“That was a great get for us, so we're really excited about having her artwork,” said Paseo Arts Association Executive Director Amanda Bleakley. “I think it's perfect. It represents the district. It shows the buildings and the people and all the things that are going on.”
Uplifting artwork
Although she mostly paints on canvas in her home studio, Duong, 38, has spent many hours over the past three years high above her hometown in a cherry picker.
“It's been really fun,” she said .“I love being high. I love being outside. … I love making art when I'm outside. And I love being on lifts. I mean, there's some scary moments when it' s really windy, but you just try to shut it out ... and work through it.”
The Putnam City High School graduate said she hadn't painted a mural in years when Kanaly, curator of Plaza Walls, a rotating mural project in the Plaza District, invited her to go big with her work in a prime spot at NW 16 and Indiana.
“The imagination from Denise is just really special and unique. It has kind of like a storybook feel. … I think that is why a lot of people are attracted to it, because they can find little hidden items here and there that they may not have seen the first time. The more that you study it, the more that you understand the story that she's trying to tell,” Kanaly said.
She added another chapter in her distinctive characters' ongoing tales last year on the outside wall of Lyric Theatre, where her latest Plaza Walls work is still on view.
“Her detail to storytelling and delightful characters are the perfect visual match for what Lyric is doing inside the theater as well,” said Lyric Producing Artistic Director Michael Baron in an email.
Her latest mural project, titled“Life in the Light ,” was recently completed in another OKC hot spot: Film Row. Although they tower above of the burgeoning district, the artist added plenty of fun little details, including a movie camera in a nod to Film Row's history, the state motto “Labor Omnia Vincit” and a car reminiscent of the models produced in the old Fred Jones Ford Manufacturing Plant, now 21c Museum Hotel.
Continuing adventures
Through her distinctive cast of “make-believe friends,” Duong makes the human element the main focus. While some figures are tailored for specific works, like her playful Paseo poster portraits of Joy Reed Belt and the late John Belt, who have been instrumental in the district's renaissance, others are recurring characters who appear in many of her paintings.
“Overtime, I've just become so comfortable in
drawing them that they've kind of, for me, taken on a life of their own,” she said.
For her second Paseo festival as a gallery owner, she is selling enamel pins depicting two of her regulars — an aviatrix who often flies on the back of a large bird and a newer mermaid-like character.
“I try to look at it as a fun space for everybody to kind of congregate. (It's) kind of like a clubhouse that features my work along with other people's work. So, it's been really, really fun to have and just get everybody together, especially during the festival,” she said of her gallery. “I'm extremely exhausted by the end of the day, but during the whole festival experience, it's just like a big party.”