"My paintings are inspired by the world around me, memories, and imagination and often incorporate narratives of personal significance to me. I work in an improvisatory painterly style, making changes as the works progress. The result is a painterly rather than "finished" or linear look. I often use my own photographs for information and ideas, but not as models to be faithfully copied. I usually work from preparatory studies, but make changes as needed as the painting progresses.

My paintings tend to be large in scale and exclusively oil on linen canvas. I build up the paint surface in thin layers and glazes. Color, of utmost importance to me, is used to build form, space and structure. My earliest work was abstract, and formal issues, such as composition, space, relationships, etc., have continued to underlie my work, no matter the overt subject matter."

Diana Kurz has been an exhibiting representational painter since the 1970s—her subject matter has included monumental figure paintings, landscapes, still lifes, portraits, and animal imagery. She was born in Vienna, Austria and currently lives in Soho, NY.

Her art has been exhibited in 35 solo shows and over 150 group shows in museums and galleries throughout the United States and Europe. Her work is in many distinguished collections including, among others: Bezirksmuseum Josefstadt, Vienna, Austria; Brooklyn Botanic Garden, Brooklyn, New York; Collection, City of Vienna, Austria; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Columbia University, New York, New York; Hudgens Center for the Arts, Duluth, Georgia; Jewish Museum of the City of Vienna; Rose Art Museum, Brandeis University, Waltham, Massachusetts; Rowan University, Glassboro, NJ; Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, Georgia; Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey; United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC; Wien Museum, Vienna, Austria; Yad Vashem Art Museum, Jerusalem, Israel.

Kurz has been the recipient of numerous grants and awards including, among others, a Fulbright Fellowship to France; American Center Residency in Paris; New York State Council on the Arts CAPS Grant; Austrian Federal Ministry of the Arts/VCCA Artist-In-Residence in Vienna; Atlantic Center for the Arts and residencies at Yaddo, McDowell Colony, Hambidge, and others. She has taught studio art at Queens College, Pratt Institute, Philadelphia College of Art, Cleveland Institute of Art, Stonybrook University, Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Colorado, Boulder, and the Art Institute of Chicago.

She received her B.A. from Brandeis University and M.F.A. from Columbia University.