Still Life & the Human Form

• human form

With this body of work, I aim to capture the age old patina of a fresco while conveying a contemporary, visually poetic image. I experiment with the texture and substance of that which most of us desire -- time, space, love, connection, knowledge, and nourishment. I seek to make visible the absence that takes one deeper inside -- to a meditative, dreamlike, sensual place, and to the openness and shape of desire.

Without abandoning my original, signature style -- superimposing and merging images at various degrees of opacity and translucence -- I explore new dimensions of light, shadow, space, contour, and curve while exposing the surfaces and elements of what we are drawn to, including the human form, food, architecture and the world of books.

When it comes to our desire to learn, represented in "Turn the Page," "An Open Book," and "The Shape of Knowledge" this takes us beyond mere necessity to a higher place, one that allows us to communicate, connect and understand humanity with the various turns it has taken for both good and bad. We can gain knowledge from others, and make a more positive contribution to the whole.

In taking a closer look at what a piece of fruit symbolizes, to recognize its beauty and simplicity as a work-of-art, we can use eating as a daily meditation -- by seeing and touching its shape and texture, breathing in its aroma, and tasting its sweetness and juiciness, it truly fulfills our body and soul's requirements for real nourishment.

- Diane Epstein