Wednesday evening studio photograph.

A big doodle on my desk.

Long Series #1353.

#1353

Have you met…Diane Englander?

An introduction can be a wonderful thing. You can meet interesting people, and make new friends. You can be introduced to your new favorite foods, books, music, or artist.

I’d like to introduce you to some of my favorite artists. Some of whom I’ve been familiar with for years, and other I’ve only recently been introduced to.

The artist I’d like to introduce is the painter Diane Englander.

Slashes and Blue Forms on Layered Buffs (2012)
Watercolor paper, mulberry paper, acrylic, pencil on canvas,12 x 24 inches

“My work searches for the place between discord and tranquility, for the spot with a charged harmony that energizes as it also provides refuge. That search means I have to attack the prettiness of the initial painted surface, avoid balance, court darkness or stridency, invest a piece with conflict. Most recently my efforts, which began with collaged surfaces only subtly alluding to three dimensions, have begun to move more firmly into space. Both with knife slashes to the surface and with more prominent attached layers or folds projecting forward, I am reaching into your space as another way to create movement and energy.

As for the largely intuitive process, the material in front of me—papers, cloth, pieces of wood–influences my direction, as does inspiration from the world that we don’t call art: a wall, a landscape, a window shade transfused with light, a stretch of sand and shadow. (And of course echoes from other artists, Burri, Vicente, Tapies, Motherwell, Rauschenberg, medieval cloisonné, Cycladic figures, Vermeer, Manet, Breughel, Nicholson, Scott, Blow, and many, many more.)

After the crude line or slash or ripping that militates against utter tranquility, the piece is done, occasionally the same day, sometimes weeks later, sometimes never (and then maybe its remnants become a new jumping off place) when there’s harmony despite friction, a calm energized by tension.” DE

Layered Buffs VII (2011)
Watercolor paper, canvas, mulberry paper, pencil, 26 x 21 3/4 inches

Other material relating to Diane Englander:

Images and Insights: Diane Englander’s blog.

New York Artists Circle: Diane Englander.

MoMA PS1Studio Visit: Diane Englander.

If you liked this introduction check out the Previous and Next.