July 14 – September 16, 2018
Project Room
Reception: Friday, September 7, 5:00 – 9:00 p.m.
Sentient highlights a small sampling of the animation work of artist Diane Christiansen. Animation is but one facet of her practice, at once responding to and informing her drawings, paintings, collaborations and music.
Artist Statement
With one eye on demonic spirits in Tibetan tantric painting and the other on Tex Avery’s Screwball Squirrel banging a perceived foe with a mallet, I have stumbled on a practice which allows me to mine humor and absurdity while honoring the themes of divinity in the ordinary and impermanence and the interconnectedness of all life. Drawing and painting are my primary navigational tools. From that ground animations and collaborative large-scale projects are developed. Increasingly collaboration and relationship are themes as well as methods of creation. The goal is to illuminate and celebrate the ridiculous impermanent and interdependent state in which we find ourselves.
Diane Christiansen is a visual artist and musician. Her art practice includes painting, drawing, animation and large-scale collaborative installations. Her work has been exhibited in her hometown of Chicago and in many cities all over the U.S. and abroad including New York; Los Angeles; Denver; Portland; New Orleans; Edinburgh, Scotland; and Ljubljana, Slovenia. Her animations have been screened worldwide. Most recently Christiansen collaborated with Jeanne Dunning to create BirthDeathBreath, an inflatable opera which premiered at the Elmhurst Art Museum followed by an exhibition at the Armory in Pasadena.
Christiansen received a B.A. from Grinnell College, an M.F.A. from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and an M.S.W. from Loyola University. In her spare time she is a psychotherapist in private practice focusing on individuals and couples.
Find out more about Christiansen and her work at christiansenstudio.com.
Image: Diane Christiansen, still image from Notes to Nonself, 2010, 3 minutes 35 seconds
