Diane Feissel is a painter currently living and working in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania after having grown up on Cape Cod, Massachusetts and living in San Francisco, California and Raleigh, North Carolina. Diane studied painting at Bryn Mawr College and Haverford College in Pennsylvania, and continued studies through classes at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and Fleisher Art Memorial in Philadelphia, and with Studio Escalier in France.
She has exhibited work at Karin Sanders Fine Art, Hang Art, The Los Gatos Art Museum, Studio Gallery, 66balmy, LIMN Gallery, Mina Dresden Gallery, Flanders Art Gallery, Flanders 311, Visual Art Exchange, Artspace, The Philadelphia Sketch Club and the Green Hill Center for North Carolina Art. In October 2005 Diane was one of a select group of San Francisco artists exhibiting in Paris through the Le Génie de la Bastille Invitational, and in 2007 she participated in a two-person exhibition at Galerie Cupillard in Grenoble, France, as part of an exchange with Grenoble painter Juliette Lemontey. Diane's work has been selected for national juried exhibitions, including the 2005 Georgetown International Fine Arts Competition at Fraser Gallery in Washington, D.C. She was also a finalist in Artist's Magazine's Annual Art Competition in both 2005 and 2006, and is a finalist in the 2010 Richeson 75: Figure/Portrait competition.
Diane's paintings and commissioned portraits hang in private collections throughout the country and abroad.
Artist Statement: Diane Rollins Feissel
Much of my work involves a certain amount of paradox, and is an attempt to reconcile – or at least to address – the inherent contractions in life. I embrace the full spectrum of life; in my paintings I seek to juxtapose peace and chaos, humor and tragedy, realism flirting with the surreal. Painting is both a celebration of and a manifestation of my frustration with the complexity inherent in nature, and the contradictions inherent in life itself - its quirks, inconsistencies and maddening – yet fascinating – non-linear patterns. Realism as the launchpad for my imagemaking, as I find there is an inherently pleasing paradox in the replication of a 3-dimensional world in a 2-dimensional format. I choose to paint because I feel that through visual imagery we can share those incongruities that cannot be explained in words, but rather felt and intuited.
In this most recent series of paintings on printed fabric I’ve allowed myself to be influenced by the printed surface on which I’m working, inventing a narrative in reaction to the fabric pattern within each panel. Animals play a large role in these narratives, as they hold great potential for shape-shifting and anthropomorphism, with ever-changing identities as we humans project onto them our ideas, stories and motivations. Their identity and their concerns – truly unknown to us – can be only a product of our fabrication. And in keeping with my usual intent in paintings, there is room even in a relatively small format to explore the relationship of 2- and 3-dimensional space, as well as the relationship and fabricated narrative between the existing print and the painting.
She has exhibited work at Karin Sanders Fine Art, Hang Art, The Los Gatos Art Museum, Studio Gallery, 66balmy, LIMN Gallery, Mina Dresden Gallery, Flanders Art Gallery, Flanders 311, Visual Art Exchange, Artspace, The Philadelphia Sketch Club and the Green Hill Center for North Carolina Art. In October 2005 Diane was one of a select group of San Francisco artists exhibiting in Paris through the Le Génie de la Bastille Invitational, and in 2007 she participated in a two-person exhibition at Galerie Cupillard in Grenoble, France, as part of an exchange with Grenoble painter Juliette Lemontey. Diane's work has been selected for national juried exhibitions, including the 2005 Georgetown International Fine Arts Competition at Fraser Gallery in Washington, D.C. She was also a finalist in Artist's Magazine's Annual Art Competition in both 2005 and 2006, and is a finalist in the 2010 Richeson 75: Figure/Portrait competition.
Diane's paintings and commissioned portraits hang in private collections throughout the country and abroad.
Artist Statement: Diane Rollins Feissel
Much of my work involves a certain amount of paradox, and is an attempt to reconcile – or at least to address – the inherent contractions in life. I embrace the full spectrum of life; in my paintings I seek to juxtapose peace and chaos, humor and tragedy, realism flirting with the surreal. Painting is both a celebration of and a manifestation of my frustration with the complexity inherent in nature, and the contradictions inherent in life itself - its quirks, inconsistencies and maddening – yet fascinating – non-linear patterns. Realism as the launchpad for my imagemaking, as I find there is an inherently pleasing paradox in the replication of a 3-dimensional world in a 2-dimensional format. I choose to paint because I feel that through visual imagery we can share those incongruities that cannot be explained in words, but rather felt and intuited.
In this most recent series of paintings on printed fabric I’ve allowed myself to be influenced by the printed surface on which I’m working, inventing a narrative in reaction to the fabric pattern within each panel. Animals play a large role in these narratives, as they hold great potential for shape-shifting and anthropomorphism, with ever-changing identities as we humans project onto them our ideas, stories and motivations. Their identity and their concerns – truly unknown to us – can be only a product of our fabrication. And in keeping with my usual intent in paintings, there is room even in a relatively small format to explore the relationship of 2- and 3-dimensional space, as well as the relationship and fabricated narrative between the existing print and the painting.
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