Diane Englander
A native of New York City, Englander was brought up going to galleries and museums, a sometimes reluctant attendant to her parents’ passion for looking and collecting.
Before beginning to make art herself, she worked as a lawyer for several years and then as a management consultant to local nonprofits concerned with poverty or disenfranchisement.
In late 2006, Englander began making collages that started her on her current path. She studied with Bruce Dorfman at the Art Students League in New York and in 2012 attended the Vermont Studio Center with an artist’s grant. In 2013 she won the Allied Artists of America award at the Butler Institute of American Art. She currently maintains studios in New York City and Southampton, NY.
Englander has had solo exhibits at the Alexey von Schlippe Gallery at U.Conn-Avery Point; Hampden Gallery at U. Mass., Amherst; the Grubbs Gallery in Easthampton, MA; and at the Living Room Gallery at Saint Peter’s Church in Manhattan. She has exhibited in group shows across the United States and in Italy.
“In my work I aim for a place between discord and tranquility, for the spot with a charged harmony that energizes while also providing refuge. To reach that goal I play one formal element against another to create some friction or conflict within a generally contemplative piece.
The material in front of me—found or repurposed papers, cloth, pieces of wood—influences my direction, as does inspiration from the world outside the studio: a wall, a landscape, a play of shadow.
When the work transmits to me a calm energized by tension, then it is done. Occasionally that happens the same day, or weeks or months later, sometimes never; and then maybe its remnants become a source of inspiration for the next piece.” — DE
Red and Taupe on Green, 2013, papers, acrylic, pencil on canvas, 12 x 12"
Blue and Red on Pale Blue I (2022), paper, pencil and acrylic on canvas 10 x 10"
Bright Green with Line and Fleck on Tan, 2021, paper and ink on coffee-dyed handmade watercolor paper, 8 x 8"
Red and Taupe on Green, 2013, papers, acrylic, pencil on canvas, 12 x 12"
Red Dots with Yellow, Black and White, 2019, mixed media on reused canvas, 16 x 28"
Red Dots w Orange and Black, 2020, mixed media on reused canvas, 20 x 20"
Buff Forms on Red (2022), paper, pen and acrylic on canvas, 20 x 20"
Buff on Blue IV (2022), papers, pencil and acrylic on canvas, 24 x 18"