Dianna Settles
Bio
Dianna Settles is a Vietnamese-American artist in Atlanta, Georgia who received her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2014. Her current work explores moments of joyful stillness amidst the cascading series of crises called modern life, accomplished through her synthesis of traditional Vietnamese and classical European painting styles.
Recent exhibition highlights include a solo show titled Olly Olly Oxen Free at Institute 193 in Lexington, KY and a group show with Gerald Lovell and Jurell Cayetano at MINT in Atlanta. As the inaugural artist of Living Walls’ international exchange program, she completed the 180' long mural To Our Friends / Á Nos Amis in Paris, France in July of 2019, adding to her portfolio of work as a muralist in Atlanta, Oakland, and Pittsburgh. She was a finalist for the 2019 Forward Arts Foundation Edge Award, and was recently accepted into the Atlanta Contemporary Studio Artist Program.
In addition to her own art practice, Dianna runs Hi-Lo Press, a print studio and art gallery in Atlanta.
Artist Statement
My work attempts to shapeshift and transform fleeting moments of joy, isolation, power, and friendship into something more lasting and fluid. How can I make material these ephemeral experiences so that we can reflect on them, revisit them, and remember them in all their ecstasies and agonies?
Formally, I work by creating compositions combining objects, people, places, and actions from my life and the life I share with my friends. Each of these individual components carries specific emotional and historical resonances, and in their combination, whether depicting an actual occurrence or a possible arrangement, they take on a richness that gestures towards all the potential arrangements of a life worth living. Many of my paintings illustrate joyful, powerful, collective experiences, acting as both an exaltation of such moments, as well as an exploration of the desire to further elaborate modes of life that precipitate them. In some of my work, the subjects are caught in moments of isolation or the interruption of their access to this kind of joy, raising questions around the structures and obstacles preventing us from living meaningful and pleasurable lives in common. Whether my compositions portray grand adventures or the often overlooked, banal moments of the everyday, they aspire to inspiring and celebrating the desire to fully participate in our lives together, and the pleasure possible in the struggle to do so, even in a world which can so often feel inhospitable to this desire.
I've tried to use my work as a way to give space to my own observations and responses to the world around me, as well as to be able to reach out and place those insights in contact with those who share my world. Making these images is a way to process my own life experiences and identities, to identify and highlight patterns in my behaviors and actions, and to celebrate the beauty and uniqueness of the worlds my friends and I construct and inhabit. My vibrant use of color, poetic compositions, and detailed, quietly playful mark making illustrate this reverence for communal experience. I aim for my work to find paths across others' experiences, collectivizing, refining, and revealing shared experiences to elevate them beyond our individual dreams and memories.
My work is also deeply influenced by my 2014 trip to my father's home country of Vietnam, where I witnessed room after room of artwork featuring figures that I could, for the first time, relate to and see myself in. This began my skillful but indeterminate synthesis of traditional Vietnamese painting and the classical influences of European colonization. Like many non-white artists in the United States, and especially the south, this in-between-ness resonates with me and drives my urge to reach those others who might also feel unseen. The presence of marginalized bodies in works of art is historically important, and suffuses my attempt to translate conflicting feelings of alienation through the bodies, colors, and objects that I render into sources of power and reclamation. My hope is that, through sharing my work, others will be able to follow my journey. In doing so I hope they too will feel encouraged enough to follow themselves, in the deepest sense possible.
Education
2014 BFA San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA
Exhibitions
2021
Olly Olly Oxen Free, Institute 193, Lexington, KY
Pre-Renovation Potluck, MARCH, Manhattan, NY
Jurell Cayetano, Gerald Lovell, Dianna Settles, MINT Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2020
Nightwork: 2020 EDGE Award Exhibition, Swan Coach House Gallery, Atlanta, GA
Semblance, Juried Exhibition, MINT Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2019
The One That Got Away, Delaplane, San Francisco, CA
Of Origins and Belonging, High Museum, Atlanta, GA
To Our Friends | À Nos Amis, (Mural) 10eme District, Paris, France
artintheATL, Hartsfield-Jackson Intl Airport, Atlanta, GA
Art Crush, Factory Atlanta, Atlanta, GA
2018
In These Streets, Trio Gallery, Athens, GA
Art Papers Auction, Southern Exchange Ballroom, Atlanta, GA
Bodies of Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow, Collect on Sunday, Atlanta, GA
HER RITUAL, Wish Gallery, Atlanta, GA
Hambidge Auction, ADAC, Atlanta, GA
WREKtacular, Mammal Gallery, Atlanta, GA
Time Like the Present, Zuckerman Museum of Art, Kennesaw, GA
99 Flowers, solo exhibition, Versa Gallery, Chattanooga, TN
99 Flowers, solo exhibition, Hi-Lo Press, Atlanta, GA
2017
Signs of Solidarity, Facet Gallery, Atlanta, GA
Art Papers Auction, The Boiler Room, Atlanta, GA
The Gathering, WonderRoot, Atlanta, GA
Assembly Required, Murmur Gallery, Atlanta, GA
This Is It, Blue Mark Gallery, Atlanta, GA
Hambidge Auction, Colony Square, Atlanta, GA
re:FRESH, Swan Coach House Gallery, Atlanta, GA
Dear Atlanta, Big Tree Arts, Atlanta, GA
COLLAPSE, Mason Fine Art, Atlanta, GA
Living Walls, The City Speaks, 2017, Atlanta, GA
Let's Be Friends 2, Hi-Lo Press, Atlanta, GA
Signs of Solidarity: Voter Edition, Eyedrum, Atlanta, GA
2016
Silken Fiction, Hi-Lo Press, Atlanta, GA
Hambidge Auction, The Goat Farm, Atlanta, GA
Let's Be Friends, Hi-Lo Press, Atlanta, GA
Art Purrty, Giant Lofts, Atlanta, GA
Little Things Mean A Lot, Swan Coach Gallery, Atlanta, GA
Pressing Matters, Paper Planes Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2015
HI LO, solo exhibition, Runaway Studio, Pittsburgh, PA
Raised on Replicas, Campfire Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2014
Sudden Cinder, solo exhibition, Octane, Atlanta, GA
BFA Graduate Exhibition, SFAI, San Francisco, CA
Print, curated by Noemi Szyller, Diego Rivera Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2012
Concentrate, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco, CA
No Place Like Home, solo exhibition, Octane, Atlanta, GA
2011
Nick Of Time, Kibbee Gallery, Atlanta, GA
2009
Food Not Bombs Benefit, Wonderroot, Atlanta, GA
Publications
2019
Commune Magazine
Published December 10
Mask Magazine
Published August 30
Commune Magazine
Published July 2
2018
Commonplace Review
Published August 24
fLoromancy
Published April 27
Creative Loafing
Published February 20
2017
Queer Azn Musicians
Mixed Ride Zines
Published November 27
Remezcla
Published September 21
The Lifted Brown
Issue 35
Published September 1
ArtsATL
Published August 18
Medium
Published August 14
Mixed Azn Queers
Mixed Rice Zines
Published June 15
Creative Loafing
Published June 3
The FADER
Published April 18
NPR
All Songs Considered
Published March 29
Atlanta Journal Constitution
Published January 19
2016
NYLON
Published July 11
ArtsATL
Published February 24
Creative Loafing
Published February 22