Diana Palermo
Bio: Diana Palermo is an artist, educator, and spiritual practitioner making work under the umbrella of experimental photography. Diana's work probes themes of believability, power, and materiality with a researched focus on religion and queer theory. The artist’s work has been exhibited globally through performances, exhibitions, solo shows, and publications most notably with The Newark Museum, Montclair Art Museum, International Print Center of NY, Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Fuller Rosen Gallery, The Pattern Base, and Artforum. The artist holds a BFA in fiber art from the University of the Arts, MA in art education from Kean University, and MFA in photography from Columbia University
dianapalermo.com
Instagram: @line_dot_square
Thesis Exhibition
Artist Statement: wanting to investigate the fires I’ve left behind
to no longer leave rooms wondering
‘did I forget to blow out the candle?’ finding my body turning into
a tender little pile of slow burning embers
radiating more warmth
than the raging fire that was there before
light bringing clarity near shadows
a fluidity that flickers in spaces of structure
sometimes a harsh blinding reminder
of tension and necessity
of asking questions, centuries old,
that were never answered
and extinguished before attempted
to be slow and consistent
amidst my own violence
the force and will of powerful transmutation
leaving traces of histories in tongues no longer spoken
dancing on ancestors bones
around a bonfire
and realizing my skeleton is theirs, reignited
I queer the use of photography and spiritual traditions, playing with the image’s relationship to systems of belief and power. My process takes on a performative format, weighing and balancing the potency of material with that of my own body. I use a flashlight to create darkroom poems bringing to light thoughts from an intimate world. While kneeling on the paper, I surrender to chance, trusting that the words will be revealed. What is unseen while gesturing the poems on paper, is clarified through chemical processing. In my lumen prints, fire is wielded as both creator and destroyer. These marks are branded, claiming space in an assertive way, while tracing gestures of healing and expansion. The choice to leave the images unfixed remarks on the fluidity of time in ritual acts. I collaborate with these materials, allowing them to continually change on their own as a result of the force that is acted upon them. All of these explorations have led me to a culmination of images which act as byproducts of this continual conversation with the invisible. The pieces are all relics, still containing a hint of visceral charge, not unlike the arrows of Saint Sebastian’s martyrdom or the manuscripts of Mystic Hildegard of Bingen.
L to R: Gesture 2, (40" x 32," Gelatin silver prints, 2021)'; a stand in for a body, (8" x 10," Gelatin silver print, 2021); Sanitatem 3, (14 " x 11, Unfixed lumen print, 2021); fire or fiber, (64" x 40," Gelatin silver prints, 2021)
First Year Exhibition
L to R: Web, (20 x 16 in, Gelatin silver print collage, 2019); Clockwise, (14 x 11 in, Unfixed lumen print, 2020)
Incantation 2, (32 x 40 inches, Gelatin silver print, 2020)
Open Studios
