DIANA TREMAINE
Diana Tremaine was born in 1964 in New York City. There, influenced by the modern art collection of her Great Aunt and Uncle Burton and Emily Tremaine, her preference for a contemporary aesthetic developed. After getting her Fine Arts degree at the University of California in Los Angeles in 1988, Tremaine lived in Los Angeles for 14 years where she taught painting and drawing at Taft College and Chino’s Men’s State Prison. In 1999, in search of more space and greater access to the natural world that had become a great source of inspiration for her work, Tremaine moved to Bozeman, Montana where she now lives and works with her husband and daughter.
In 2018, Tremaine was commissioned by Keeneland to paint retiring retiring race horse champion Lady Eli. Keeneland, recognized globally as the premier Thoroughbred auction house and a world-class race track, invited Tremaine to come meet the infamous Lady Eli and spend a week on their grounds in the Artist Cottage painting the superstar. The painting was completed during the 2018 Breeder's Cup at Churchill Downs and presented to her then owner Sol Kumin.
In addition to her inclusion in numerous gallery exhibits across the country, Tremaine's work resides in public and private collections from Japan to Switzerland to exclusive mountain resort areas.
STATEMENT
Diana Tremaine’s paintings are inspired by the natural world around her and informed by her own life’s experiences. With her subjects - horses, birds, wildlife, family - she strives to elevate the beauty of a moment. With her process - building up and breaking down over and over - she communicates the complexity and struggle that is inherent in all beauty. Regardless of “subject”, Tremaine creates intentional surface tension, layering opaque paint over transparent paint, juxtaposing clean, crisp edges with subconscious mark making and chaos, allowing subjective pops of color to float gracefully above deeper discord, in order to allude to differing layers and forms of reality. Quietude often juxtaposes chaos. More highly resolved passages counter raw, abstracted passages. Her process is never premeditated but rather one of constant response, with each mark informing the next. Over completion could signal the need for breakdown, or vice-versa. In this way, the process itself, the battle between composure and chaos, between what is known and what is unknown, becomes the ultimate “subject”.
“Ultimately I explore the relationship between the real and the intangible in ways that entice me back to the studio. The conflict of image and abstraction, light and yearning, equal parts joy and loss, is the most powerful form of expression for me.” - Diana Tremaine