Statement 2017: “Phenomenology of Form”
In my abstract painting and sculpture, I strive to move away from a human-centered world, into one populated entirely by objects composed of form and space. I refer to my paintings and sculptures as places. There, the forms are free of the use value we assign to objects in the world around us. Rather than fulfilling human needs, or even catering to the symbolic or allegorical imagination, these forms exist independently of us, and draw the viewer into their space. They come alive on their own. To meaningfully fill space, they must become space, composed of dimensions and acquiring their own fullness of being. This way, the forms exist not as potential objects, but as something that can hold and reveal the essence of being.
Bio 2017
Diane Szczepaniak (born Detroit, Michigan) is interested in Slow Art. She approaches art and life slowly as the focus of her work. Beginning with drawing and sculpting the figure, she worked through these media to her present understanding of the physicality of objects in space, and how objects meaningfully acquire their own fullness of being which has remained with her throughout her career and brought her directly to abstraction. This past spring, VisArts in Rockville, Maryland exhibited “Color and Light,” a solo exhibition of her paintings and sculptures. She was a finalist for the Trawick Prize in Bethesda, Maryland in 2012 and awarded an Individual Artist Award in Visual Arts: Sculpture from the Maryland State Arts Council. She has presented annual workshops, since 2011, exploring line, color, perception, and space to Dudley Fellows at Harvard University. To commemorate Thoreau’s bicentennial this summer, she created ”River of Sticks II” at the Hapgood Wright Forest, Concord, MA. Her work is in national and international private and public collections.
Email the Artist: dcszcz@aol.com
