Dianna Rex - Painter
Dianna’s work is about the physicality of paint as much as the landscapes and portraits that are the subject of her work. She traces this to a childhood illness when, after long hours confined to bed in a hospital, she began to see parallels between a book she was given on the French Impressionists and the flaking layers of paint and grime on the surfaces of the walls and woodwork around her.
After getting a degree in art from Dartington College of Art in 1993, she evolved a body of work that incorporated painting on unconventional surfaces, with the paint itself given treatments objectifying the status of the object and drawing references between the body of the object and the body as object. At this point she was using the Oblique Strategies cards devised by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt to shape rules for her creative choices.
Street art became an influence in the late 1990s and Dianna’s politically feminist work featured in subways and pedestrian bridges around her then home of Derby. In moving to a rural setting she has returned to evolving earlier methods, continuing to find ways to make her work a function of her exploration of materials.
After getting a degree in art from Dartington College of Art in 1993, she evolved a body of work that incorporated painting on unconventional surfaces, with the paint itself given treatments objectifying the status of the object and drawing references between the body of the object and the body as object. At this point she was using the Oblique Strategies cards devised by Brian Eno and Peter Schmidt to shape rules for her creative choices.
Street art became an influence in the late 1990s and Dianna’s politically feminist work featured in subways and pedestrian bridges around her then home of Derby. In moving to a rural setting she has returned to evolving earlier methods, continuing to find ways to make her work a function of her exploration of materials.
Artist Statement for Dianna Rex
Dianna Rex (born 1972, Dover) makes paintings and photos. By applying a poetic and often metaphorical language, Rex investigates the dynamics of landscape and memory, and the impact of politics and gender upon them. Rather than presenting a factual reality, an illusion is fabricated to interrogate the realms of our imagination.
Her paintings appear as dreamlike images in which recollection and reality meet, implicit symbols merge, meanings shift, past and present fuse. Time and memory always play a key role. Her work addresses the mortality of artwork, confronting the viewer with the power of transitory appearance, which is - by being restricted in time and existing within social context(s) - much more intense.
Her works are made through strict rules which may be perceived as liberating constraints. Romantic values such as ‘inspiration’, ‘genius’ and ‘authenticity’ are thereby neutralised and put into perspective. The thought processes - which are supposedly private, and unfiltered in their references to dream worlds - are frequently revealed as inherently politicised assesmblages.
Dianna was influenced by her interactions with Helen Chadwick, who she briefly worked with after graduating and whose questions led Dianne to reconsider her relationship with her home town, and its status as an inescapably politicised point of departure and arrival. That concern with boundaries and entry continues, and has led in turn to an exploration of sexuality and fluidity, creating compositions or settings that generate tranquil poetic images leaving traces and balances on the edge of recognition and alienation. Dianna Rex currently lives and works in Derby.
Her paintings appear as dreamlike images in which recollection and reality meet, implicit symbols merge, meanings shift, past and present fuse. Time and memory always play a key role. Her work addresses the mortality of artwork, confronting the viewer with the power of transitory appearance, which is - by being restricted in time and existing within social context(s) - much more intense.
Her works are made through strict rules which may be perceived as liberating constraints. Romantic values such as ‘inspiration’, ‘genius’ and ‘authenticity’ are thereby neutralised and put into perspective. The thought processes - which are supposedly private, and unfiltered in their references to dream worlds - are frequently revealed as inherently politicised assesmblages.
Dianna was influenced by her interactions with Helen Chadwick, who she briefly worked with after graduating and whose questions led Dianne to reconsider her relationship with her home town, and its status as an inescapably politicised point of departure and arrival. That concern with boundaries and entry continues, and has led in turn to an exploration of sexuality and fluidity, creating compositions or settings that generate tranquil poetic images leaving traces and balances on the edge of recognition and alienation. Dianna Rex currently lives and works in Derby.