A painter in landscape

Last year Diane walked into an artist retreat and workshop I run with photographer, Karen Bell in northern Portugal. Our connection, two painters and a photographer, stem from the degrees we earned at different times at The Rhode Island School of Design, a preeminent art school on the east coast of the United States. One common thread RISD graduates share is the currency of energy, focus and desire to practice art.

Life can contribute or challenge implementation of currency, but the confidence in one’s visual voice, cultivated at RISD, thrives or refuses to fade. Diane was a painter at RISD, a colorist by profession with an architectural firm in Stuttgart, a mother and a woman of incredible focus. Becoming acquainted with Diane as a landscape painter, without distraction from work or family has been an extraordinary way to ‘‘see’ her.

Portugal’s landscape is as rigorous a landscape as any, with rapidly shifting light re-drawing panoramic views every few minutes. Diane is enticed by this task and equipping herself to confront the natural elements of sun, wind, hilly dry ground, irregular paths and oil paint, she becomes the central focus of awe. Using an instinctive and fine design sense, her appetite for light, a cubists’ articulation of form, and an eye for dynamics, Diane not only ‘makes a painting’, ‘paints a landscape’ or ‘studies atmosphere’, she grabs visual tools, and applies high energy asserting design over nature. Nature and landscape ignite her reactions. Her work is launched through sharp observation of fact but asks what thousands of possibilities are of color colliding with paint inside a picture plane. Similar to the posture of Lucian Freud’s self-portrait in a mirror, with palette knife in hand like a fencer meeting an opponent, Diane greets her mesmerizing landscapes. Her decisive, angular divisions become full-bodied marks pulled across surfaces, across space, becoming bigger than the picture. Her plein air paintings characteristically uphold the monumental, by using the broadest compression of natural elements that her frame can tolerate. Diane is not a gentle painter; she is a tremendous painter. In collusion with pitch-perfect drawing, her paintings share an impatient, demanding, restless energy in combat with logic, invention, and color eloquence. Diane Gormans visual currency is energy, out in the field or otherwise.

Dale Emmart Co-director and Founder of Plein Air Portugal Department Head of Art, The Brearley School, NYC, NY

vita

born

new york city

lives and works in stuttgart germany

education

1994 postgraduate studies, staatliche akademie der bildenden künste, stuttgart, germany

1988 BFA bachelor of fine arts, RISD, rhode island school of design, providence, rhode island

1978-81 the art students league of new york

professional experience

2018- 2024 werkstatthaus, color workshops, stuttgart, germany

1992-18 sfp architekten, color consultant, stuttgart, germany

1994-04 werkstatthaus, instructor of painting, stuttgart, germany

1989-91 zaha hadid architects, painting colorist, personal assistant, london, england

1988 museum of art, rhode island school of design, curator, rhode island, usa

1986-88 woods-gerry gallery, exhibition design, rhode island, usa

1985 printmaking apprentice, artist swietlan kraczyna of foundation il bisonte, florence, italy

1982 studio assistant, artist clayton pond, New York City, usa

artist residencies

2021 atelier galerie valérie gautier, belle-île-en-mer, france

2019 officina stamperia del notaio, tusa, italy

2015-16-17 plein air portugal, amarante, portugal

solo exhibitions

2020 there, zeitkapsel gallery, stuttgart, germany

2019 untethered, studio space, stuttgart, germany

2018 unfolding, zeitkapsel gallery, stuttgart, germany

2017 lookout, zeitkapsel gallery, stuttgart, germany

duo exhibitions 

2021 station neun / veronika askani and diane gorman, galerienhaus 3.0 palmer, stuttgart, germany 

group exhibitions

2024 transformation, fotosommer, raum für fotografie, staatsgalerie stuttgart, germany

2023 station 19/kehraus, galerienhaus 3.0 palmer, stuttgart, germany

2023 station 18/verhandlungsbasis II, stuttgart, germany

2018 stuttgart 500P, stadtpalais, stuttgart, germany

2010 25 years werkstatthaus, stuttgart, germany

1995 malerei - grafik, werkstatthaus, stuttgart, germany

1994 woodcuts - paintings, hörderlingstr.3, stuttgart, germany

1993 kontraste, neues rathaus leonberg, leonberg, germany

1989 five artists, on the vineyard gallery, martha’s vineyard, usa

1988 small but monumental, the hera gallery, rhode island, usa

1988 new artists, the currier museum, new hampshire, usa

1987 works from risd, university of rhode island gallery, rhode island, usa

1987 paintings and prints, fleetcenter, rhode Island, usa

publications

2024 arsmondo, Claudia Fenkart-Njie, Sonderschau »Transformation«