Diane Piktialis

artist statement

I have always found inspiration in nature. My fondest childhood memories are spending endless hours helping my mother care for her gardens and accompanying my grandfather tend his large vegetable garden and forage in the woods for mushrooms. I grew up at a time when children were told “Go out and play and don’t come back until dinner time.” And we did, in fields, along streams and in the woods. Adulthood brought college, career, marriage, family, and a life that left less time in nature, though I always managed to have a garden, even if it was on the fire escape of a sixth floor walk-up apartment in New York.

I began exploring botanical art shortly before retirement. My interest began when I came across an exhibit by the New England Society of Botanical Artists at the annual Boston Flower Show. As I looked at the stunning botanical art, I knew I’d found a new path I wanted to explore. I began taking classes at the Friends of Wellesley College Botanic Gardens where I received a Certificate in Botanical Art and Illustration. My subjects often capture New England’s seasonal transitions, with their constantly changing colors and patterns.

Careful, intentional observation helps me to capture the stunning beauty of the nature that more often than not goes unnoticed in today’s hectic world. I hope my art will surprise the viewer into seeing what our eyes often pass over, from the stark beauty of birch bark in a winter forest to the hundreds of tiny flowers that make a single lilac blossom in the spring.

Bio

Diane Piktialis is a multi-media artist and has completed coursework in drawing, printmaking, painting, collage and botanical art. She studied the use of mixed media at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Massachusetts and has studied Botanical Art and Illustration at the Wellesley College Botanical Garden and pleine air painting with Todd Bonita and Christopher Volpe in southern Maine. Piktialis is an active participant in Brookline Open Studios and has exhibited her work in the Brookline Public Library, Brookline Bank, Eastern Bank, the Boston Flower Show, the Arnold Arboretum and in various shows sponsored by the New England Society of Botanical Artists.

She is a member of the American and the New England Societies of Botanical Artists.

Her work can be found in private collections in New York, throughout New England and in Florida.