Diane is a mixed-media artist who describes her style as..."a little bit impressionistic and a little bit cubist." Her storytelling oils are often inspired by a quote or personal story. "If I hear a phrase that strikes me, I can visualize an image." That was the case with "Side Stepping Reality," an oil which pulls a tale from her life's story and centers on a giraffe stranded on the roof of a house. Sometimes we wonder how we got to a particular place in our lives. It is as if the giraffe is asking 'How did I get here?' and wanting to be anywhere but where he is. "I want people to engage in my art, to open a door for them into the world as I see it and express it on my canvases."
Moving from the Midwest to Arizona brought the colors of the rocks and desert into her mixed media work. Here the natural elements and her geometric forms are explored and manipulated in a variety of media. Those architectural structures, elements of nature and man's presence in the spaces are fundamental images that have been repeated over and over as each culture meets and passes through each other. In the worlds on my panels the forms and colors bounce back and forth, negatives on positives, until they create a new world.
Her newest series again addresses issues about the struggle of man and nature. Now it was the concern for the future of the Earth's native seeds: the life blood of human survival. To tell this story she turned to encaustic, bees wax, a medium that is in itself a gift from nature. The encaustic medium fascinates, challenges and pushes the possibilities that this artist hungers for; texture, sculpting, collage, and fabulous luminous melting color.
Her newest series again addresses issues about the struggle of man and nature. Now it was the concern for the future of the Earth's native seeds: the life blood of human survival. To tell this story she turned to encaustic, bees wax, a medium that is in itself a gift from nature. The encaustic medium fascinates, challenges and pushes the possibilities that this artist hungers for; texture, sculpting, collage, and fabulous luminous melting color.
