Diana Gabriel

Diana Gabriel is from Colombia and currently lives and works in Chicago.

Gabriel has exhibited in Chicago and nationally. Some venues include the Chicago Cultural Center, Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art, Chicago Artist Coalition, and Willis Tower. Her work has been published in New American Paintings, with reviews by Sixty Inches From Center and the Chicago Tribune.

The imagery in Gabriel’s artwork is inspired by memories of handmade patterns in baskets, plate settings, tapestries, tablecloths, and doilies under the flower vases from her grandmother’s home in Colombia. Borrowing aspects of these artisan traditions, she re-creates moments from her childhood, taking part in a conversation that emanates from countless generations of women artisans.

In addition to her emotional, familial connection with the structure of patterns, her predilection for this method of making also comes from her interest in transitions and processes—the logical steps that take a structure from one stage to another. Transitions can be minuscule or substantial, but each is inherently crucial to the composition and value of the final whole. The work she makes isn’t planned, shifting the emphasis from the final product to the process—the collecting and weaving of separate parts into something more than they were individually.