Diana Kingsley (b. 1964, Philadelphia, PA) is a visual artist based in New York City. She received her BA at Colgate University and her MFA at the School of Visual Arts, NYC. Her work has appeared there most recently in solo and group shows at Leo Castelli Gallery. She has also had solo shows at Bellwether Gallery and Derek Eller Gallery and has participated in group shows throughout Europe and the U.S.
She is known for her crisp, highly composed photographs that have a spare elegance and a sly, deadpan wit. She has said of her work:
“I set up still lifes or closely cropped nature shots that are carefully arranged, but somehow fraught—both over-specific and elusive. Non sequiturs, self-consciousness, and unintentionally humorous formal affectations are ongoing preoccupations.
My subject matter could be almost anything—a cat staring at bowls of milk, a snake under a rock, a badly placed brooch on a sweater. I tend to use whatever’s close at hand, so autobiographical allusions inevitably sneak in. I’m not interested in forcing any particular narrative; I’m more interested in a sensibility that runs through the work: low-level despair, resignation, thwarted desire, overwrought sensuality, tomfoolery. I push that with the titles. I’m going for the rigor of minimalist design, the angst of an existential one-act, and the humor of a Chaplinesque slip on a banana peel. Think Charlie Brown meets Robert Mapplethorpe.”
