|
“Each day working in my studio I start not knowing what image will emerge. I allow myself the freedom of indecisions, improvisations, and impulsiveness in my work, and that leads to exciting discoveries. My encaustic (hot wax) work is mostly non-objective painting. Process is an important part of the work. I make my own medium and pigmented wax. The texture and translucency possible with this medium has enabled me to take my work to new a level. The wonderful scent of beeswax fills the studio as I apply the wax in layer after layer, often scraping back to recapture a past stroke or color. The element of surprise and reinvention often changes the direction of the piece in just one moment. ”
My oil paintings are figurative, a search for memory and of traces and faces left behind; the act of remembering people and places from the past. Art is a way to create, share, and comment on the collective experiences and memories of life, a way to see with the senses what is not always seen with the eyes. I want the viewer to see their own memories in my work.
Article from "The World" newspaper upon my First Place award at the Expressions West exhibition at Coos Art Museum in Coos Bay, Oregon, June 2010.
Entertainment Scene : Proud Panoply Medford artist lays it on thick to win Expressions West at CAM COOS BAY — When Expressions West 2010 juror Kevin Kadar screened the exhibit entries on his computer, he tentatively selected his choice for first prize. After the exhibit was mounted at the Coos Art Museum, he took another look. Then, before making his final decision, he asked a friend for input. All three times, the choice was the same: “Showing Off” by Dianne Erickson of Jacksonville, near Medford. When the winners were announced to polite applause at last Friday’s reception, Erickson couldn’t help cheering for herself. “It was really exciting to get a first place at the Coos Art Museum,” she said. “When somebody else says, ‘I really like that,’ it makes you feel really good.” Erickson’s painting shows her parents as teenagers sitting on a blanket with about two dozen small fish laid out before them. It’s part of a series of figurative work based on old family photos. “My intent is not to paint a particular person, but to share a moment in time and comment on the collective experiences and memories of life,” Erickson wrote in an e-mail. “I want the viewer to see their own memories in my work.” Erickson applies paint thickly, creating texture in her work. She chose the works she entered because she researched Kadar and concluded that her figurative works — with human subjects — were most likely to impress him. But it was the texture that won him over, he told her. “He liked the way the paint was applied,” Erickson said. (Kadar couldn’t be reached for an interview.) Sixteen South Coast artists are among the 57 painters included in the exhibit, which runs through July 3. Kadar, a Portland artist and former Coos Bay resident.
|
