Diana Jensen


Art Statement

May 2010

In my paintings of oil on wood and canvas I rediscover and resurrect the people I find in discarded photo albums acquired at flea markets.
Seeking the truth of the past, not simply historical record, I look for hidden expressions of intimacy and human interactions between the figures in the photographs. My paintings obsessively record all of the small details—the touch of hands, a loving gaze… The collections of resulting paintings often evolve into large installations. Usually I spend more than a year on each large painting project.
I counter the flatness and ephemeral quality of the original photographs, with a thick, visceral paint application. I impart a weight and physicality in depicting the persons in the lost photographs—restoring the presence of those forgotten. I like to think that my paintings are physical placeholders for the persons who are absent.
Beginning with the discovery of caches of superficial, cheesy snapshots, I finish with collections of paintings that redress history--a providing new perspective of the lives of forgotten people.
My current project is the “Blue Screen Series.” These paintings reference photos I found on the wall of a Miami pizzeria—shots of the workers after hours. The vivid ultramarine blue of the paintings suggests not only the tropical Miami environment, but also the blue screens of film making, where figures are shot and extracted from an environments pictorially. In this series I investigate the role of the individual with in a group—studying how, in life, people come together randomly, interact and become close knit community.
A recent painting project-“Group Shot Italy, 1972,” references an Italian family of 50 people at a birthday party in 1972. The family group is crowded together--many of the members are obscured. I paint the persons separately giving them individual identities and breathing room. After making more than 40 paintings of the details of these individuals, I installed them at eye level around the perimeter of a gallery. Instead of the viewer studying a family photograph, the family now surrounds the viewer.