Artwork Description
Diane Marsh – Elephant Prayer
Dimensions: 50 x 36″ unframed
Year: 2020
Medium: oil on paper
For 45 years, my studio practice has focused on figurative paintings exploring the human condition and our connection with the natural world.
Early work portrayed single figures, images of sorrow, and inner wounding. Mid-career I painted large diptychs which paired figures with animals or landscape, emphasizing that a connection with nature is necessary to heal our wounded souls. Current work involving images of nature, children, text, prayer and the ethereal realms of memories, dreams, and spirit, depicts a merging of these worlds. I have always mined the experiences of my own life, searching for a universal truth within that experience, which then serves as a road map for my work. “Death is a Hard Teacher” (2022) has the quote scratched onto the surface, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” While this painting came from the experience of suffering a personal loss, it caused me to reflect on the many traumas of our current world situation and the issues of loss, betrayal, pain and grief.
My paintings offer a vision of a spiritual path, the importance of connection with the natural world to face life’s sorrows and suffering, to awaken in our hearts compassion for all life. In 2017 Lucy Lippard wrote,“Sorrow is not denied, but acknowledged and transcended by earth, water, sky. Marsh’s work is a plea for understanding, a personal and unifying need or desire that is offered to the viewer as a gift.”