Open Studio
with Diana Chambers

Diana Chambers will open her studio to the public on Thursday 26th September from 1pm - 8pm.

Diana is a KCAT artist and has been Artist-in-Residence in Butler Gallery's Garden Studio for the past 4 weeks, where she has been developing a new body of work, inspired by the museum building and the Butler Gallery collection.

Visit the Open Studio at our Garden Studio to see Diana's artistic process and artworks in stages of development.

Diana Chamber's Artist Residency is part of a supported, inclusive, accessible artist led residency programme at Butler Gallery for which a selected artist from KCAT Arts Centre has the opportunity to develop a new or existing body of work in the museum context.

About:

Diana Chambers joined the KCAT studio in 2015 where she continues to dedicate herself to the practice of painting. She has shown her work internationally, including at Gallery C8 Überlingen Germany, Galleria Art Kaarisilta Helsinki Finland, and at the Beyond Festival Leeds U.K. She has also shown in numerous exhibitions in Ireland, including at Uillinn: West Cork Arts Centre, Farmleigh House Galleries Dublin, F.E. McWilliam Gallery Banbridge, Riverbank Arts Centre Newbridge, Link Hall Gallery Kilkenny, and Crawford Art Gallery Cork. Diana’s work has been featured in publications such as The Engagement Project KCAT (2014-2020) and Perceptions: The Art of Citizenship (2016).

Among the wide spectrum of content within Diana’s work, there are many depictions of people who often appear as though they have only briefly stopped whatever they are doing in order to pose for her. They often look out toward the artist, in the way people might if they were posing for a photograph. They also often appear ever ready and even anxious to move on with their activities and their day. There is simultaneous vulnerability and a confidence to many of the figures depicted by Diana. They sometimes appear as fragile figures at the same time as they present dynamic and assured poses and wear colourful fashionable clothes. It is as though Diana admires and is honouring people who persist in being motivated and even excited by life, despite its trials. It may also be that Diana is quite simply intrigued and excited by other people she has engaged with, those she sees in represented in various imagery media, and those she imagines into existence herself. Other points of focus within the spectrum of subjects explored by Diana include the exotic, the sensual, and the natural world.

Diana is prolific, often working with speed and producing several works a day. It can seem as if she is trying to keep up with the pace of her thoughts and feelings as she paints, as though the process of painting is constantly trying to catch up with her. It can also seem that Diana feels there is so much in the world to be explored and painted that there is little time to procrastinate. The result is an ever-evolving body of deeply expressive and beautiful works.