ABOUT

“Where am I going with this white piece of canvas? It’s like writing a story without knowing the ending – it appears in front of you…”

Diane Detalle (b.1974) is a French-born, American based painter. Energetic, intricate and spontaneous, her work embodies the dual traditions of European and American abstract art.

Detalle’s painting has, in recent years, been deeply influenced by a series of personal losses and by her own dual identity as an artist and a mother. In the space of five years Detalle suffered the deaths of her mother, her aunt and her brother and sister 18th months apart . In May 2022 she opened a seminal solo exhibition entitled “BIGGER THAN LIFE: In Loving Memory of Edouard Detalle” at One Art Space gallery, NYC. Working in a deliberate haze of pressure, Detalle sought to reach into her grief to evoke her brother and his complexities in the paintings. Many layered, and with subtle interplays of light and darkness that suggest interior and exterior emotional landscapes, the paintings stand not only as a memorial but as a living and passionate evocation of humanity, loss and love. As the mother of three children (‘I have given birth to three New Yorkers!’), Detalle describes how, enclosed in her studio, she ‘shuts down’ being a mother and a wife and goes back to her unconstrained self in order to paint. Her 2019 solo show was titled “DE TOI A MOI: From You to Me”. The painting of the same name is an organic web of lines and forms competing, merging and mutating – the complex and changing flows of the artist’s emotions and energies made visible.The solo show ”CÉCILE” in May 2023 was in honor of her sister deep love for literature and music. She painted instinctively in the hope to represent her sister with an authentic artistic expression .

This fine balance between unpredictability and a disciplined and focused self-control is at the core of Detalle’s artistic process in the studio. She describes how each painting is inspired by ’emotional pressure’… her need to react to a psychological state or a process of spontaneously travelling through a sensation, sound or vision. Canvases are laid out flat on the studio floor and the artist moves around them like a dancer, approaching from every angle, building the painting with layer upon layer of colour and texture – ‘… it starts with an idea and then the execution takes over’. Having experimented with dripping techniques in acrylic paint, often improvised in response to music, Detalle’s recent paintings see her working with what she describes as her ‘square mind’. Using a palette knife as her primary tool, she obsessively explores 45 degree angles, as well as parallels and diagonal lines. The paint is dropped onto the canvas from above, and then Detalle digs in with her knife and brush, finding the lines, perpetually in motion and flux like the city around her, often straining physically and imaginatively to reach the centre. ‘Nothing is one way’, says Detalle firmly, of her creative philosophy.

Detalle lights up describing her immediate, intense creative reaction to the energy of New York when she arrived on a one way ticket at the age of twenty four. The curiosity and experimentation of her early years in the city quickly led to her first serious works and to her growing realisation that she was, incontrovertibly, a self-taught artist. Whilst living in Paris and working in the financial sector Detalle had stood on the outside and looked into the windows of lighted first floor apartments, wondering at the beautiful artworks within. In NYC she moved into an apartment with a big white wall and immediately set about creating a huge and exquisite painting for herself on her own terms. ‘The sense of unpredictability around New York was […] endearing to me. From the incredible sunsets to the energy flowing around the city, I knew this is where I should be.’ Ever experimental, ever spontaneous, reaching and responsive, Diane Detalle continues to use the canvas to write her own story.

Diane Detalle lives and works in New York City with her husband and children. Her work has most recently been in New York City, in 2023.

Text by Isabel Taylor, Oxford UK

#DianeDetalleArtist

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Exhibitions

Selected Solo and Group Exhibitions

ODYSSÉE in Saint Jean Cap Ferrat, Côte d’ Azur, France (2024)
Cècile, Solo Show New York, NY (2023)
Venice Art Biennale, Group Show, IT (2022)
Bigger Than Life, Solo Show, One Art Space, New York, NY (2022)
SCOPE International Contemporary Art Show, Group Show, Miami Beach, MIA (2022)
“De Toi à Moi” / “From you to me”, Solo Show, One Art Space, New York, NY (2019)
Horizons Within, Diane Detalle & Faustine Badrichani, One Art Space, New York, NY (2016)
Art in Context, private space, New York, NY (2015)
Commission painting, private art collection of Lombard & Odier Collection, Geneva (2014)
Commission paintings, Fig & Olive art collection in their new restaurant, Chigaco (2014)
Inside out, Gallery 69, New York, NY (2014)
Girls Just want to Have Funds, Rema Hort Foundation, New York, NY (2013)
Commission painting, Fig & Olive Melrose Place, Los Angeles, CA (2013)
Reaching Up, Gallery 69, New York, NY (2012)
WE art heart, Empire Hotel Roof, New York, NY (2010)
Rema Hort Foundation, P.P.O.W Gallery, New York, NY (2010)
Trunk art show, Elle Magazine & Bloomingdales, New York, NY (2010)
Group Show, Kipton Art Gallery, New York, NY (2010)
Group Show, Ferality Show Collective, New York, NY (2010)
Pure Emotions, New York, NY (2010)
Group Show, Trilogy of Art, New York, NY (2009)
Re!ections Within, Chelsea Modern Gallery Duplex 3, New York, NY (2009)
Group Show, The Apartment, London, UK (2008)
Arte Barbara Galleria, Paseo Santa Barbara, ARG (2008)
Solo Exhibition, 532 Gallery, New York, NY (2008)
Designer Center in Ricoleta Buenos Aires, ARG (2007)
Opening Show, Louise Alexander Gallery Porto Cervo, Sardinia, IT (2007)
Solo Exhibition, Ricoletta Buenos Aires, ARG (2007)
Realms of Abstraction, Agora Gallery, New York, NY (2006)
Exclusive Exhibition, Troubadour Gallery, London, UK (2005)
Exhibition, Brasilia, BR (2005)
When World Collide, Exhibition, Brasilia, BR (2005)
Excellence Art Studio, Brasilia, BR (2005)
Exhibition the Massonic Palace Brazil (2005)

Work Experience

Abstract painter. Self taught. International exhibitions. New York, USA. 2000 to present.
CEO of Era Development LLC: Financial consultant. New York, USA. 2001 to 2004.
Associate at Online Capital Inc: investment banking. New York, USA. 2000-2001.
Inter-dealer Broker at Tullett & Tokyo: Swap derivatives. London, UK. 1997-1998.

Education:

Masters in Management. Univeristy of Nice. Nice, France. 1997.
Diploma in Marketing. University of Nice-Sophia Antipolis. Sophia Antopolis, Fr. 1995.

References:

Lillian Heidenberg, Art Dealer NYC USA.
Willy Troglia, CEO of Chukker LLC, NYC, USA/ Buenos Aires Argentina. Architect.
Personal references available upon request.