Dianna Molzan

Dianna Molzan’s simultaneous painterly and sculptural practice is firmly grounded in the materials and structural format of painting – canvas, linen, stretcher bars, oil paint, brushes, and palette knife. She consistently constructs singular, nonfigurative painting-objects, sculpted after abstraction of 1980s-era-textiles, fashion, furniture, and Memphis Group ceramics. In this series of “string paintings”, Molzan experiments with the canvas, as she unravels the fabric, thread by thread, then form a new interwoven configuration. This undoubtedly meticulous, trompe l’oeil style of deconstruction and rebuilding with materiality serves Molzan’s interest in the uncanny and painterly exploration. Recurring elements in this series include color tracing and theory, deeply outlined figures and patterns, optical illusions and gravitational collaboration.

Dianna Molzan has recently been the subject of the solo show Double Take at kaufmann repetto Milano. Her work has been exhibited internationally in shows such as Less Is a Bore: Maximalist Art & Design, ICA, Boston (2019); The Conscientious Objector, MAK Center for Art and Architecture, Los Angeles (2018); NO MAN’S LAND: Women Artists from the Rubell Family Collection, National Museum of Women in The Arts, Washington (2016); The Forever Now: Painting in the New Millenium, MoMa, New York (2014); Variations: Conversations in and Around Abstract Painting, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles (2014). Among the others her work is held in the collections of Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; Rubell Family Collection / Contemporary Arts Foundation, Miami; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco; Walker Arts Center, Minneapolis; Whitney Museum of Art, New York.