From Behind the Night Painting

"Phenomenology of Form” In my abstract painting and sculpture, I strive to move away from a human-centered world, into one populated entirely by objects composed of form and space. I refer to my paintings and sculptures as places. There, the forms are free of the use value we assign to objects in the world around us. Rather than fulfilling human needs, or even catering to the symbolic or allegorical imagination, these forms exist independently of us, and draw the viewer into their space. They come alive on their own. To meaningfully fill space, they must become space, composed of dimension and acquiring their own fullness of being. This way, the forms exist not as potential objects, but as something that can hold and reveal the essence of being. BIOGRAPHY 2017 Diane Szczepaniak has been recognized throughout the East Coast for her abstract paintings and sculptures. Since the age of twenty-three, Szczepaniak has been driven by the study of the dynamics of form. Initially focused on drawing and sculpting the figure, she worked through these media to an understanding of the physicality of objects in space, which has remained with her throughout her career and brought her directly to abstraction. Using this understanding of space as an inspiration, she creates paintings by layering numerous washes of paint on paper and canvas, in a process that reflects her early sculptural training. Inversely, her glass sculptures are a physical representation of her painting process where each sheet of hand-blown colored glass represents a layer of paint. In both cases, each additional layer of color changes the whole. GALLERY Youngblood's, Sag Harbor, NY AFFILIATIONS Washington Sculptor Group, Washington, DC (member of the board) Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, DC InLiquid.org, Philadelphia, PA SELECTED PERMANENT COLLECTIONS American for the Arts, Washington, DC Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH Embassy of the Republic of Poland, Washington, DC Maison Ailleurs, Chartres, France St. Mary’s College, St. Mary’s, MD RECENT AWARDS Sondheim Semi-Finalist (2011 and 2014) Trawick Prize Finalist (2012) Maryland individual Artist Awards: Sculpture (2009) SELECTED REVIEWS Paris Review, Clairvoyant Observation (March 9, 2016) AEQAI an e-journal AEQAI.COM (November 24, 2013) Baltimore CityBeat, Baltimore, MD (May 28, 2008) Art Papers, Reviews, pg 46 (July/August 2005)