DIANA STETSON
Originally from New York, Stetson is a visual artist based in Alameda, New Mexico, whose work reflects a lifetime of artistic inquiry and cultural engagement. Her upbringing in the Hudson River Valley, studies at Reed College in Oregon and Roehampton Institute in London, and extensive travels and research in Greece and Asia have all shaped her practice. Over the past four decades, she has combined her studio work with a deep commitment to civic and cultural dialogue—developing public art projects, leading international exchanges, and creating work centered on environmental and social themes.
Stetson’s artistic approach is rooted in her evolution through several disciplines. Having worked full-time as an artist for nearly forty years, she began with lettering and collage, moved into printmaking, and, for the past thirteen years, has focused primarily on painting. These three techniques—collage, printmaking, and painting—continue to intersect in her process. Her works often unfold in layered stages: beginning with abstract compositions in acrylic, moving into graphic layers that incorporate vintage papers and collage, and culminating in expressive realism rendered in oil.
Read More
Her work has earned more than forty grants and awards, including support from the U.S. State Department in Washington, D.C., and the French Ministry of Culture in Paris. Stetson’s art is held in private and public collections around the world, with exhibitions at institutions such as Le Musée en Herbes in Paris, the Museum of Fine Art in Ashgabat, the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe, the Albuquerque Museum, and the Portland Art Museum. In 2012 and 2014, she was invited by the U.S. State Department as a cultural liaison to Turkmenistan, where she curated an historic exhibition of American and Turkmen painters, presented at the National Art Academy, and installed her own retrospective at the Museum of Fine Art in Ashgabat.
