Diana Armstrong is a British wildlife painter living in Pickering, North Yorkshire.
“My paintings are visual expressions of transformation. I am interested in differences in the painting’s surface and how that can symbolise different states of being. The genre that best describes my work is ‘Magical Realism’ which concerns itself with broken boundaries between the mythical and the real.”
Diana Armstrong
The concept of metamorphosis has long been a source of fascination for artists throughout history. From the ancient Greeks’ myth of Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” to contemporary art forms, metamorphosis has inspired some of the most innovative and imaginative creations. In mythology, metamorphosis often takes the form of gods and goddesses transforming into animals or inanimate objects. These transformations served to illustrate the power and fluidity of the divine realm and the limitless possibilities of the imagination. Ovid’s “Metamorphoses” is one of the most famous examples of this, recounting countless tales of transformations throughout Greek mythology:
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“The new mud becomes burning hot under the sun’s rays, and the farmers, as they turn over the sods of earth, come upon many animals. Among these creatures they see some just begun, but already on the point of coming alive, others unfinished, lacking their full complement of limbs; and often in one and the same body one part is alive, while another is still only raw earth.”
During the Renaissance, artists began to explore the concept of metamorphosis in their work – Titian being a great example of this, with his many works based on Ovid’s tales hanging in the National Gallery, London. Gilding was also an often used religious technique in pre-Reformation art e.g. the Wilton Diptych at the National Gallery, to name one famous example. Gustav Klimt’s paintings are a more modern example of the technique. On one level the gilded surface of the painting is strikingly different to the surrounding layers of paint – pointing to the drama of what may or may not happen: changes between states of living and dying, the material and the spiritual.
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“I use gold and silver leaf in my paintings for two main reasons: firstly it symbolises transformation and reincarnation from it’s origins as meteorites impacting the earth millions of years ago, and secondly it portrays what cannot literally be painted – the sixth sense of spirit and intuition (for me the difference for a hunter or the hunted in matters of life and death). Gold is not a colour as such, as are the other elements of the painting; it is of a different order of existence. The mirror-like reflection on the paint surface changes as the viewer walks round the painting, adding an extra element of interaction with the viewer. The paintings come alive particularly at night in a candlelit room throwing back the viewers presence with wonderful flickering highlights – to the point where the viewer becomes part of the painting.”
The pictorial element of gilding links Diana’s paintings to the historical position of viewing animals in the light of ancient sacred traditions. Joseph Campbell in his seminal work ‘ The Way of the Animal Powers’ relates animals to a deeper sub-conscious level, even healing and bringing insight through their stories and energy. Depicted as supreme beasts and mythological and historical symbols, we can see the sacred history of ourselves; our passage through time leading to what Carl Jung called the Archetypes. Nicholas Mann writes in his book ‘The Keltic Power Symbols’:
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“The role of the Power Animal has always been to link the human species with the larger collective environment or ecosphere. We are all part of each other. By dreaming of an animal, by performing a ritual, by retelling an ancestral creation myth, the Dreamer, the Shaman, the Bard is working with the essential unity of life, and can journey into the collective spheres of being, through the mediating role of the animal”
Diana’s work strives to find both a balance and tension between the representational and the abstract, the traditional and the contemporary. For Diana, painting wildlife is not an exercise in rendering all the painstaking details. Instead, her work is an ongoing experiment of composition, colour, and technique concerned with a sense of energy and atmosphere found through conveying the elemental forces in the natural world. This leads to an essential balance and tension between the more magical abstract background and the realism of the subject. In a way you could say that she is on the frontier between the figurative and the abstract; the traditional and the modern.
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“When I see an animal in the wild I begin by asking myself ‘what is it like to experience the world in your reality?’ This involves both an understanding of the physiology of often short but intense bursts of energy that exists for both the hunter and the hunted as-well as a leap of imagination into the world of myth and the history of the animal . I strive to assimilate that animal energy through the act of painting; to capture some of its essence and so form visual poetry.”
CV
Diana studied English at King’s College London where she was introduced to the paintings in the National Gallery during a tutorial called ‘Literature and art’. Ever since that day she became fascinated with painting spending hours copying and sketching the old masters. She returned to her home of Yorkshire after graduating, where she now lives and works in Pickering, gaining inspiration from the local wildlife. It is this background of literature and love of the animal world that gives Diana her unique perspective on painting. Diana has gained great success over the years. In 2013 she won the ‘Sponsors Choice Award’ in the prestigious bi-annual New Light Prize Exhibition, which recognises newly emerging artistic talent currently being created in the North. Diana also regularly exhibits throughout the UK, including the Mall Galleries and the Affordable Art Fairs in both London and Edinburgh. Diana’s work has become highly sought after, making them precious acquisitions for collectors.
b. 1980 in Exeter, U.K. raised in Gilling East, North Yorkshire
Education
2004 BA English Language and Literature, King’s College London
2005 – 2007 Evening classes in Life-drawing, Easingwold Life-Drawing Group, Galtres Centre, Easingwold, North Yorkshire
2006 Summer school in Anatomy and Life-drawing, The Slade, London
2008 Summer School in Portraiture and Oil painting, Edinburgh College of Art
2009 Course in Light and Perspective in Oil painting, the Norfolk Painting School
Group Exhibitions
2019 August ‘Landscapes of the Mind and Heart’, Inspired by Gallery, Danby, North Yorkshire
2016 July – August: The Society of Women Artists, Mall Galleries, The Mall, London SW1
2015 January – February: New Year Group Show, Hay Hill Gallery, London
2014 November: Jack Fine Art, Edinburgh Art Fair, Edinburgh
October: Jack Fine Art, Affordable Art Fair, Battersea, London
September: New Lights: ‘Art in the North’, Mall Galleries, London
April: Jack Fine Art, Chelsea Art Fair, London
January – April: New Lights Art Prize, The Biscuit Factory, Newcastle
2013 September – November: New Lights Art Prize The Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate
October: Jack Fine Art, Affordable Art Fair, Battersea, London
Solo Exhibitions
2013 June: Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Helmsley Arts Centre, Helmsley, North Yorkshire
Awards
2013 ‘Sponsors Choice Award’ New Lights Art Prize The Mercer Art Gallery, Harrogate
Press
2013 September: Gazette & Herald and The York Press ‘Pickering artist Diana Armstrong shows paintings at prestigious exhibition’ September: BBC Radio York live interview re: New Light’s Art Prize