Dara G. Lewis

Dara G. Lewis has always bee a visual learner. Growing up it was quickly understood that she needed greater visual reference than most to excel. But as she grew up if there was no visual reference provided she made her own which also started to help those around her understand concepts given. Growing up she had multiple artistic interests including ballet, visual art and horseback riding. Ballet and horses too precedent since being homeschooled prevented finding any good art teacher. She excelled in both and moved onto becoming a horse trainer in Dressage and other training disciplines. Still dancing she remained a ballerina and choreographer into her early twenties. Listening to her parents’ desires for her to gain a non-artistic education in hopes for a more “lucrative” career at age 19 she attended nursing school at the local community college in Sanborn, NY. She excelled within this field as well, although still sketching the human body during A&P classes to satisfy her artistic itch. One year into the two year RN program there was a problem. The college had ignorantly left open the formaldehyde vat the dissected cats were being stored during A&P classes. Dara’s station was right next to the vat and caused severe brain damage. Needing to drop out of college and plagued by seizures she spent the next 8 months in and out of doctors offices and hospitals waiting for an answer. The only thing she had was her art so she started drawing….a lot. After finding a medicine that worked things returned to a relative normal; but left side brain damage remained. She found certain things like coordination, language, memory and math very difficult. Professional possibilities narrowed greatly for her. She decided to cut the nonsense and go for what she originally wanted to go for…Visual Art. Showing a few times before finally building the courage and ability to drive she signed up for classes at the University of Buffalo, NY at the age of 22. Attending art classes gave her hope back. She graduated Magna cum Laude within three years and was asked to return for the Noncommittal show at the beginning of 2013. She moved to Indianapolis that year after a year long of Skype dating her soon to be husband. They met at the yearly Messiah Conference for Messianic Jews and Believers and fell in love quickly. After a second terror bout of seizures she married Nick Lewis later that year. Even more damaged she spent the next year on sabbatical from everything trying to recover; in 2015 she started making art again. Now a year later she is working on a new body of work with a specific range of themes.