Diane Englander Abstract Sculptures

Diane Englander uses formal means to create a place between discord and tranquility, a zone with a charged harmony that energizes as it also provides refuge. That often requires that the prettiness of an initial surface is made ugly, or there’s a conscious choice to avoid balance in the composition. Hers is a largely intuitive process, the materials entice her. Inspiration from the world that we don't call “art” is where she finds her muse: a wall, a landscape, a window shade transfused with light, a stretch of sand and shadow. Most influential are predecessors like Burri, Vicente, Tapies, Motherwell, Rauschenberg, medieval cloisonné, Vermeer, Breughel, and many, many more. A native New Yorker, Diane had an earlier career including 17 years as a management consultant to local nonprofits concerned with poverty or disenfranchisement; work in NYC government; and several years as a lawyer at a large NYC law firm. “I was brought up going to galleries and museums, a sometimes reluctant attendant to my parents’ passion for looking and for collecting. My own expressive energy must have simmered internally for years, occasionally emerging in photography, in quilt-making, in other tentative explorations, and certainly in providing opportunity and materials for my children to create. Not until those children were nearly grown did I come unequivocally to the need to make art myself.” In late 2006 Diane began making collages that started her on her current path; in late 2007 she left her consulting job to focus on her artwork full-time. She has studied with Bruce Dorfman at the Art Students League in New York, and has had solo exhibits at the Alexey von Schlippe...

Diane Englander uses formal means to create a place between discord and tranquility, a zone with a charged harmony that energizes as it also provides refuge. That often requires that the prettiness of an initial surface is made ugly, or there’s a conscious choice to avoid balance in the composition. Hers is a largely intuitive process, the materials entice her. Inspiration from the world that we don't call “art” is where she finds her muse: a wall, a landscape, a window shade transfused with light, a stretch of sand and shadow. Most influential are predecessors like Burri, Vicente, Tapies, Motherwell, Rauschenberg, medieval cloisonné, Vermeer, Breughel, and many, many more. A native New Yorker, Diane had an earlier career including 17 years as a management consultant to local nonprofits concerned with poverty or disenfranchisement; work in NYC government; and several years as a lawyer at a large NYC law firm. “I was brought up going to galleries and museums, a sometimes reluctant attendant to my parents’ passion for looking and for collecting. My own expressive energy must have simmered internally for years, occasionally emerging in photography, in quilt-making, in other tentative explorations, and certainly in providing opportunity and materials for my children to create. Not until those children were nearly grown did I come unequivocally to the need to make art myself.” In late 2006 Diane began making collages that started her on her current path; in late 2007 she left her consulting job to focus on her artwork full-time. She has studied with Bruce Dorfman at the Art Students League in New York, and has had solo exhibits at the Alexey von Schlippe...

A native New Yorker, Diane had an earlier career including 17 years as a management consultant to local nonprofits concerned with poverty or disenfranchisement; work in NYC governmen...

A native New Yorker, Diane had an earlier career including 17 years as a management consultant to local nonprofits concerned with poverty or disenfranchisement; work in NYC governmen...

Diane Englander uses formal means to create a place between discord and tranquility, a zone with a charged harmony that energizes as it also provides refuge. That often requires tha...