Click on images to enlarge
Images:
My Golem, 2019, installation of flax paper sculptures, drawings, photographs, maps, textiles, and performative storytelling (detail), varying dimensions.
Flower Poems, 2017, pop-up books on wooden automata, altered book covers, handmade flax, cotton, and abaca papers, waxed linen thread, watercolor pigment, ink, approx. 16” x 34” x 20”.
My Golem, 2019, Installation of flax paper sculptures, drawings, photographs, maps, textiles, and performative storytelling (detail), varying dimensions.
Golem study, 2019, watercolor pigment on handmade flax paper, 8 x 10
Lemons with Femur, 2018, watercolor pigment on handmade flax paper, 19” x 14”
Golem study (upper torso interior,) 2019, watercolor pigment on handmade flax paper, 8 x 10
Bio:
Diane Britt is a Birmingham, Ohio artist working in drawing, paper and book arts, textiles, sculpture, installation, and performative storytelling. She received a B.A. in Art from UMass/Boston, was trained as a typesetter and paste-up artist, and was once a member of the World Sculpture Racing Society.
Diane has exhibited at the Morgan Conservatory of Papermaking in Cleveland and the Abecedarian Gallery in Denver, and her work was recently shown in the 8th International Triennial of Artist’s Books, an exhibition that traveled through Lithuania, Italy, Germany, and the U.S.
During her first artist residency, in 2019 at Akron Soul Train, she created “My Golem,” an installation of flax paper sculptures, drawings, maps, textiles, and photographs, with original storytelling. This work follows the Prague golem and the Jewish community through 16th-early 20th century Europe, across the Atlantic in the false bottom of the artist’s Bobbe’s steamer trunk, to his rediscovery in Boston a century later, to Diane’s taking his pieces back to her home studio to begin his recreation.
A growing edge in Diane’s work is the development of projects that integrate myriad streams of visual art, history, and oral traditions. She is particularly drawn to themes involving religion and spirituality, family history, refugees and immigrants, women’s history and culture, and the natural world. In her work, Diane draws strongly from both individual experiences and those of the world around her, linking the personal with the political and humanistic, cultural and physical realms. She values play, curiosity, and engaging the world and self as a lifelong process of growth and change, and seeks ways to experiment, court vulnerability, and take risks in art and in life.
During her first artist residency, in 2019 at Akron Soul Train, she created “My Golem,” an installation of flax paper sculptures, drawings, maps, textiles, and photographs, with original storytelling. This work follows the Prague golem and the Jewish community through 16th-early 20th century Europe, across the Atlantic in the false bottom of the artist’s Bobbe’s steamer trunk, to his rediscovery in Boston a century later, to Diane’s taking his pieces back to her home studio to begin his recreation. See her storytelling at Ginko Gallery in Oberlin, Ohio here:
https://youtu.be/Whc_G0zf0oM
diane11413@yahoo.com
