Diane Szczepaniak was a vibrant force in the visual arts community and a cherished member of InLiquid since 2004. In addition to producing art herself, Diane was deeply engaged in teaching, earning her MA in Art Education from the University of Cincinnati in 1983 and serving as an instructor at various institutions in Cincinnati OH, Evanston IL, and Potomac MD. She also presented annual workshops for the Graduate Student Center at Harvard University and was an active board member of the Washington Sculptors Group.
Diane worked in a variety of mediums. Her early training as a sculptor and welder gave her an intuitive understanding of the dynamics of form. In her paintings, form emerged from her exploration of watercolor layering. These works were often inspired by the emotions roused by poetry, music, and meditation. However, through the thousands of layers of paint, something deeper is conveyed, something beyond the visual or even the symbolic.
In Diane’s sculpture work, light is the guiding principle. Her glass sculptures, displayed in Chance Encounters at Park Towne Place shortly before her passing in 2019, show a natural curiosity towards the interplay of light and color. Diane took translucent sheets of glass and layered them to create dynamic assemblies of shades, shapes, and shadows, adding new dimensions to seemingly simple flat surfaces.
This fascination with light is also seen in Diane’s Folding Panel series. The free-standing sculptures are composed of wood and sheet metal, full of rectangular shapes and right angles, evoking the aesthetics of carpentry or stage design. But the way light dances through each piece, reflecting from one metallic surface to another, creates an ethereal ambience and a unique sense of perpetuity.
Diane had a keen eye for the in-betweens and the hidden. In her artist statement, she stated: “By training myself to see flat surfaces as energetic space, I have worked to realize and share the invisible distances that are often crowded out in our increasingly efficient, light-saturated, and networked lives.” This singular perspective is evident in Diane’s remarkable body of work.
A reception was held to honor the life of Diane Szczepaniak on Friday, November 8, 2020 at St. Elizabeth Catholic Church in Rockville, MD. Diane’s passion for her work carried through to the final stages of her life. As she entered hospice care, Diane continued working on a project through the VisArts Bresler Residency. Despite her circumstances, she strove to complete her proposed work with the assistance of friends and family, resulting in an extraordinary sculptural relief titled Flipping Panels Falling Like Water. As with the art she produced throughout her incredible life, the work is attentive and insightful, inviting the viewer to follow the movement of light and shadow down a mesmerizing matrix of angled, wooden surfaces.
Diane was a committed, passionate, and generous artist. She will be missed by the InLiquid community, and both she and her family are in our thoughts.
From my early training as a sculptor and welder, I have been guided by the dynamics of form. In my paintings, form emerges from color as I apply thousands of translucent layers of watercolor paint. I put red over blue, blue over red, sometimes yellow over everything all the while looking through the painting as through a sheet of glass until I sense something holding still and expectant/ready in the piece. Colors naturally hold symbolism for me, and I have painted in response to images from poems I find mysterious, feelings roused by music, that familiar experience Wallace Stevens calls “passions in rain, or moods in falling snow,” and even meditations on thoughts. The paintings from my Works series have offered me an especially resonant field for such explorations. At the same time, I do not think simply in terms of color, but through color. As the divergent layers of paint multiply, they move beyond the visual and symbolic, challenging me by slipping along the color wheel and deepening into a widening pool of still light under my brush.
Light is the principle behind my Folding Panel sculptures as well. These free standing sculptures are made of wood and sheet metal whose flat surfaces stand at angles to each other. Light moves along the subtle scratches of polished metal and reflect within the theater of the piece. I envision some of them, built on a larger scale, as actual fountains along whose surfaces thin sheets of water might run.
By training myself to see flat surfaces as energetic space, I have worked to realize and share the invisible distances that are often crowded out in our increasingly efficient, light-saturated, and networked lives. The flat surface in art has not, however, stopped being a mystery, and I hope to continue working my way towards it and bring viewers into its strange and irresistible reaches.
Youngblood Fine Art, Sag Harbor, NY
Soho Myriad, Atlanta, GA; Los Angeles, CA; London, UK
Wexler Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
InLiquid, Philadelphia, PA
Washington Project for the Arts, Washington, DC
Washington Sculptor’s Group, Washington, DC
2011 – present
Member, Board of Directors, Washington Sculptor’s Group
1999 – present
Artistic Director/Screen Painter, Theatrical productions, Herbert Hoover Middle School, Potomac, MD
1993 – 1995
Drawing Instructor, Studio 620, Cincinnati, OH
1990 – 1991
Welding Instructor’s Associate, Evanston Art Center, Evanston, IL
1985 – 1988
Membership Coordinator, Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati, OH
1983 – 1985
Arts Education Coordinator & Drawing Instructor, Cincinnati Arts Consortium, Cincinnati, OH
1981 – 1984
Treasurer, Merchant’s Gallery, Inc., Cincinnati, OH
1998
Lecture, “Watercolor painting techniques for art teachers,” Fairfax County Public School System, Fairfax, VA
2004
Non-Sensory Perception of Form, Dumbarton Concert Gallery, Washington, DC
2002
In Pursuit of Form, Xavier University Art Gallery, Cincinnati, OH
1998
Watercolors, Embassy of the Republic of Poland, Washington, DC
1997
Abstracted Space, Arts Club of Washington, Washington, DC
1985
Painting and Sculpture, Merchant’s Gallery, Inc. Cincinnati, OH
1984
Painting and Sculpture, Merchant’s Gallery, Inc. Cincinnati, OH
1981
The Figure, S.S. Cyril & Methodius Seminary, Orchard Lake, MI
2005
Inbetweenness, Black Rock Center for the Arts, Germantown, MD
1995
Paper, Scissors, Rock, University of Cincinnati Medical School Library, Cincinnati, OH
Three-peron
1980
Transition of Three Artists, Northern Kentucky University, Highland Heights, KY
2011
Sondheim Semi-Finalist Exhibition, Decker/Meyerhoff Galleries, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD
2010
Porous Borders, Washington Sculptor Group, Historical Society of Washington DC, Washington, DC
Curator: Jayme McLellan
gaps, Washington Sculptor Group, Greater Reston Arts Center, Reston, VA & IPAR
Curator: Vesela Sretenovic
2009
Courage Unmasked, Katzen Center, American University, Washington, DC
Idylls, Washington Project for the Arts, World Bank, Washington, DC
Curator: Andrea Pollan
Wild Women of Watercolor, Marlboro Gallery, Prince George’s Community College, Largo, MD
2008
22nd Annual Critics’ Residency, Maryland Art Place, Baltimore, MD
Curator: Robert Berlind
2007
Pre-Primed 2007, Washington Project for the Arts\Corcoran, Washington, DC
2006
Chromatic Conversations, Soho Myriad, Atlanta, GA
Sculpture Unbound, Edison Place, Washington, DC, WPA\Corcoran & Washington Sculptors Group
Juror: Glenn Harper, editor of Sculpture Magazine
2005
Thick and Thin, Gumenick Family Gallery, Cultural Arts Center at Glen Allen, Richmond, VA
Curators: N. Elizabeth Schlatter and Gwen Van Ostern
SELECT III, 2005, Washington Project for the Arts\ Corcoran, Washington, DC
2002
Curator’s Choice Exhibition, Washington Project for the Arts\ Corcoran, Washington, DC
2001
Peace Exhibition, Anne C. Fisher Gallery, Washington, DC
2000
Works on Paper Show, New York Armory, New York, NY
Pinkard Gallery, Bunting Center, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD
1999
Samson Fine Arts, New York, NY
22nd Annual Art on Paper Exhibition, Maryland Federation of Art, Annapolis, MD
Judges Choice Award
Galerie Ingrid Cooper, North Bethesda, MD
1998
66th Annual Cumberland Valley Exhibition, Washington County Museum, Hagerstown, MD
Time Warner Building Gallery, New York, NY
Galerie Ingrid Cooper, North Bethesda, MD
1997
Intimate Objects, The Ralls Collection, Washington, DC
Galerie Ingrid Cooper, North Bethesda, MD
1996
Abstraction II, DOSHI Center for Contemporary Art, Harrisburg, PA
1995, 1994
Fresh Art Exhibition, Behringer-Crawford Museum, Covington, KY
1994
The Field, Michael Straw Gallery, Cincinnati, OH
1981 – 1985
Merchant’s Gallery, Inc. Cincinnati, OH
1981
Academy of the Sacred Heart, Bloomfield Hills, MI
