In Darkness, Truth

The Hawkeye, Lifestyles - November 1, 2015

GALA featured artist says personality comes through in muted palette.

IOWA CITY - there is a certain darkness that runs through the artwork of portrait painter and print-maker Charlie Emmert Lasansky

Using a color palette that largely issues bright, cheery colors, the darkness isn't that a depression. Or fear. Instead, it is a darkness that seems to evoke depth.

Whether family or friends, her fellow artists or people she has never met, like Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein or Frida Kahlo, "I feel like I'm looking inside the person," Lasansky said of the people to pick them in her paintings and prints.

"I try to get to the truth of my work, whatever it is," said Lasansky, who will be the featured artist at Saturday's Burlington Fine Arts League 2015 gala fundraiser, which is set for 6 PM at Pzazz Event Center.

Though she has come to take on the mantle of expressionist, Lasansky discovered art when, at 16, she was inspired by the paintings of modernist masters Pablo Picasso and Mark Chagall, which were displayed by her art teacher at Grinnell High School.

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