Trick Mirror, a series of works by Dodd Professor and recent retiree, Diane Edison, examines through portraiture the complexities of platonic, professional, and romantic relationships. Each work exists as a time capsule, a memento of the artist’s life. Edison’s portraiture is deeply intimate. Whether rendered in paint or pencil, each piece examines the quiet intimacy that...
Trick Mirror, a series of works by Dodd Professor and recent retiree, Diane Edison, examines through portraiture the complexities of platonic, professional, and romantic relationships. Each work exists as a time capsule, a memento of the artist’s life. Edison’s portraiture is deeply intimate. Whether rendered in paint or pencil, each piece examines the quiet intimacy that can only arise from years of knowing a person.
Edison captures her subjects with a kind of brutal procession, the direct gaze of each sitter visualizes a stark honesty, which reveals as much about the subject as it does the artist. Portraiture as a whole functions as a form of transmutation, as the subject is channeled through the artist, their image is manipulated and distorted. Performing a sleight-of-hand, Edison creates a paradigm in which the line between artist and subject is blurred. In this way, her own likeness is reflected in the portraits of her friends and family all the while honoring her most sacred relationships.
-Kelsey Siegert, curator
