Biography

Diana Werts received a Masters Degree in Painting at Emporia State University in 1987, where she studied with Richard Slimon. She has continued her studies under such varied artists as Roberto Juarez, Lisa Grossman and Larry Schwarm, and has taught classes at the Wichita Art Museum, the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art and in her private studio. She has conducted artist residencies in Kansas and Missouri since 1988, and has exhibited in juried shows throughout the region. She currently teaches art in Shawnee Mission, Kansas at Bishop Miege High School.

STATEMENT

If we are receptive, we are moved deeply by the unique spark of those with whom we connect and the environments in which we place ourselves. A transformation occurs in us that we carry as an imprint, a memory, or a lasting impression. My paintings are explorations of this concept of exchange of being - that fluid state we are all free to visit. As a painter, I aim to maintain this fluidity, whether depicting the external - the expansive and quiet envelope of the midwestern landscape, or in my more abstract closeup views of pods or kernals that glow with a yearning for expansion.