Dianna Molzan

Dianna Molzan (born 1972) is an American contemporary artist, a painter based in Los Angeles. Thus far in her career, she is known for exploring the relationship between painting and sculpture through deconstruction and materialization of traditional painting materials and tools.

Molzan's paintings are often considered as more of a three-dimensional object than a two dimensional surfaces on the wall.^[1] Referred to as carrying a sculptural quality, Molzan's paintings are grounded within the practice of painting through the materials she uses, such as oil paints, canvas, linen, and canvas frame.^[2]

Molzan’s pieces consist of a process of deconstruction of the traditional elements of painting, which are then recombined into a new composition. She creates a juxtaposition between the mediums of sculpture and painting through the alteration of the physical state of the canvas.^[3]

Molzan’s work is associated with the techniques of impressionism, abstract expressionism, and minimalism.^[3]

Biography

Dianna Molzan was born in 1972 in Tacoma, Washington. She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2001 and also attended the Universität der Künste in Berlin. She received her Masters of Fine Arts from the University of Southern California, writing her senior thesis, How the Frame was One, on the development both theoretical and symbolic framing devices within art, primarily focusing on two works: Georges Seurat's La Grande Jatte (1884) and Eva Hesse's Hang Up (1966).

Her first solo exhibition was at Overduin and Kite, Los Angeles, in 2009.

Exhibitions

Solo exhibitions

• 2013: La Jennifer, Overduin and Kite, Los Angeles^[4]
• 2012: Grand Tourist, ICA Boston, Boston^[5]
• 2011: Bologna Meissen, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York^[6]
• 2009: The Case of the Strand, Overduin and Kite, Los Angeles^[7]
• 2009: A Diamond in the Square, USC Roski Gallery, Los Angeles^[8]

Group exhibitions

• 2015: Speed Space, Tif Sigfrids, Los Angeles, curated by Alexandra Gaty^[9]
• 2015: Matters of Pattern, Skarskedt, New York^[10]
• 2014: Forever Now: Painting in the New Millennium, MoMA, New York, curated curated by Laura Hoptman with Margaret Ewing^[11]
• 2014: Animal Mineral Vegetable, Andrew Kreps Gallery, New York^[12]
• 2014: Another Cat’s Show, 356 Mission, Los Angeles
• 2014: The White Album, Richard Telles, Los Angeles^[13]
• 2013: Xstraction, The Hole, New York^[14]
• 2013: Expanding the Field of Painting, ICA Boston, Boston^[15]
• 2013: Painter Painter, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis^[16]
• 2012: The Piano Lesson, Vilma Gold, London^[17]
• 2012: Paintings from the Rubell Family Collection, Fundación Banco Santander, Madrid
• 2012: Il Regalo, Overduin and Kite, Los Angeles^[18]

2011: The Rose-Colored Room, Overduin and Kite, Los Angeles^[19] 2011: Progression Minus Progress, Romer Young Gallery, San Francisco^[20] 2011: All of this and nothing, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles^[21] 2010: How Soon Now, Rubell Family Collection, Miami 2009: Rogue Wave ’09: 10 Artists from Los Angeles, LA Louver, Venice^[22] 2009: CAA Los Angeles MFA Exhibition, USC Helen Lindhurst Fine Arts Gallery, Los Angeles 2008: Some Paintings, LA Weekly Annual Biennial, Track 16 Gallery, Los Angeles^[23]

References