Artist Statement

The nature of my work is autobiographical, a veiled visual diary of my experiences. Through the process of artmaking I search for a better understanding of my feelings and thoughts. Time and memory are my subjects and the work is full of familial, cultural, and political influences. Born in Argentina, I traveled widely while growing up; my father's profession as an architect took our family to such places as Indonesia, Colombia and New York. Early memories of experiencing new worlds and living among diverse cultures continues to flood my work today. As metaphor, I explore issues of confinement and borders, political injustice, alienation, loss and mortality. Ultimately my aim is to reflect on the part of our human spirit that preserves and heals. The tension between opposites and the relationship that exists between the conceptual, the spiritual, and the material are also at play in my work.

Color and surface are very important components of my work. After many years of experimenting with oils, I have chosen to work with encaustics because of the quality of the surfaces I can produce. Working with this medium is very seductive and combines two of my loves: intensive manual labor (layering, scrapping, fusing), and playing with concepts and ideas. Each work is made of multiple translucent layers of melted pigmented wax and a combination of painted, stenciled, scratched and/or collaged images imbedded in each layer. As each layer gets added, it is fused to the previous one by means of a heat source. Depending on the surface I want to achieve, I use a heat gun, an electric taking iron or a torch to produce the results. The repetitiveness and the technical aspects of the process help to unlock the subconscious imagery that surfaces in the work.

Printmaking equally engages me by offering new challenges and choices. I am drawn to this medium for the extraordinary visual and tactile qualities produced by the press, and the inductive creative rhythm of the process. As a printmaker with a painting background, I primarily make one-of-a-kind images, or monoprints. My approach to the media is constantly experimental, combining printmaking processes and using multiple materials and techniques. I enjoy drifting between these two mediums and benefit from the way one informs the other.

Diana González Gandolfi