Award-winning artist Diana Stetson resides in New Mexico but is a citizen of the world. She has studied, worked and has ties to various parts of the world – Greece, France, London, Japan, and Turkmenistan, as well as both Coasts of the US. These experiences inform her work, which incorporates lyrical images from the natural world in her monotypes and mixed media paintings. Stetson received a degree from Reed College, Portland Oregon and a graduate-level Diploma in Art with honors, Roehampton Institute, London. She has received over 40 grants and awards for her work, including a grant from the US State Department to represent American artists as a cultural liaison at US Culture Days in Turkmenistan and one from the French Ministry of Culture in Paris. Her museum exhibitions have included Le Musée en Herbes, Paris, Museum of Fine Art in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, New Mexico Museum in Santa Fe, Albuquerque Museum and Portland Art Museum, Oregon.

IN HER OWN WORDS

“In my childhood I had close relationships with trees of all kinds. My work seems to be mostly about trying to express the magic I felt as a child when in nature. Trees were central to this experience. Did you know that we share 25% of our DNA with them? The connection between trees and humans strikes me as quite significant.”
“To create my paintings I use custom wood panels of Baltic birch, which have high integrity. After I seal them I can throw buckets of paint on them, sand, layer, scratch, splatter, mark, collage, stencil, throw more paint forming the abstract background. This is the atmosphere for the graphic images to be laid down. On this I paint birds, animals and/or plants, carefully rendered in oils. This layering allows me to take advantage of abstraction, as well as both graphic and representational imagery”.

GALLERY DIANA STETSON

Stetson describes her work as multi-layered. Her mixed-media paintings are created with acrylic paint and cut-outs, Frank Lloyd Wright/handmade stencils, collaged vintage papers/antique lithographs and birds/animals painted in oil. Her wonderful color and sense of design contribute to interestingly beautiful paintings.

Stetson’s Ark Series features endangered species aboard a colorful ark afloat in a sea made by acrylic paint. Using antique lithographs, vintage papers and acrylic paint her compositions are often whimsical, but her message is very serious.

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