diane rush - biography
Diane reaches for a psychological edge in her mixed media paintings, using the head image as the carrier of an existential experience of the self in certain conditions, often dealing with loss.
The current series of paintings represented in the 2010 Porthmeor Group's sixth exhibition takes its content from the image of a doll's aging, eroding, decaying, or partially dissolving face, along with a symbolic element such as an empty chair, falling structure of a house, or tunnel-like enclosure.
The doll who modelled for this series was the artist's first doll, given to her by an aunt who died in February 2010, just a month before this exhibition, at the age of 97.
Her professional background as a psychotherapist informs Diane's work in which she attempts to touch on universal archetypal themes, both personal and part of the fabric of the collective unconscious.
A 'transplanted' American, Diane moved to Britain 27 years ago and became a British citizen in 2004. She developed a love affair with St Ives, Cornwall on holiday and finally moved there 13 years ago. In the century-old artist colony in St Ives, she found a home after a nomadic life of growing up in, and then working as a civilian for the Forces.
She exhibits regularly with the St Ives Society of Artists and last year, in her first exhibition outside St Ives, she showed 20 paintings in Amsterdam at Walls Gallery, Prinsengracht. She has studied fine art at the University of Florida, George Washington University and is currently a student at University College Falmouth in Cornwall.