Dianne Athey Paintings - Artist & Purchasing Info Below

I had been looking at Dianne Athey’s work for a while. Her interests and investigations into painting sea glass have surprising power. Sea glass is the remnants of glass shards that have been tossed into salt water and over time the waves, and the PH balance shape and polish them into colored gems.

Athey has taken these and painted them enlarged and in pieces. So, they are at once recognizable and abstract. They exemplify the sum of the parts. The viewer sees the solidity of the glass commingled with its frosty transparencies.

During quarantine she has been working more abstractly and smaller. 

Her work deals with the harmony of opposites. Both ethereal and down to earth. One wishes the sea glass were made of a substance that didn’t start its life as trash thrown into the sea. But it still has a sense of magic. Sometimes called mermaids tears, they have become something beautiful from its start as detritus.It is a testament to the sea that its constant pressure and the element of time create these soft milky stones.

She has titled her sea glass pieces with the names of Roman and Greek gods and goddesses. In some cases, the names are both representative of the mythological gods as well as certain moons and satellites of the planets.

That reaching upwards as well as being intrinsically earthbound is the perfect analogy for her work. She is versatile in every style she chooses, from realistic figures to the small abstracts that have color conversations within the canvas.

Most iconic, is the trapeze painting, “Time is Waiting in the Wings.” It is such a depiction of the last year and the new life ahead of us. Dianne sees the painting as a treatise on love, the insecurity of falling and the trust of letting go. But it describes our last few months in isolation and anxiety and makes Athey a true painter of the now, the present.

With a background in graphic design, and the design director of Town & Country Magazine, her elegant skills demonstrate a refined understanding of surface and image. As if that weren’t enough, Dianne has been in a band for many years and is a true rocker!! We are pleased to add Dianne Athey to ArtRep-DG.com.