Diana Dabinett – Edgelines

Diana Dabinett – Edgelines

Christina Parker Gallery is pleased to announce Edgelines, a new exhibition of paintings by Diana Dabinett. The exhibition will open May 3 and run until May 25 with an artist opening reception on Friday, May 3, from 5:30 – 8:00 pm.

Since 1998 during an 18-month Artist-In-The-Community project in Hopedale, Diana has become increasingly fascinated by the particular geology of Newfoundland and Labrador. Her focus has narrowed to the coastal terrain where the weathered rocks and cliffs expose the patterns and forms of the eroding shore. The East Coast Trail runs along the cliff of her home in Shoe Cove and is a constant source of inspiration. She works from an initial, personal contact but develops the subject from there. Often the coastal view is obscured by the fringing boreal forest so she makes the trees transparent to expose the cliffs and ocean vista and links the branches and twigs into the rhythms of the ocean currents.

In 2017 during two periods spent exploring the north side of Conception Bay to Grates Cove, she discovered the elusive, foggy view across to Baccalieu Island which reinvigorated memories of sailing through Baccalieu Tickle many years before. Salmon Cove, Black Head Cove, The Mousehole and Flambro Head were discovered along this coast and appear in several paintings in the exhibition.

She has lived in the community of Shoe Cove, in Pouch Cove north of St John’s on the east coast of Newfoundland looking out over the Atlantic Ocean since 1975. Her large, acrylic paintings are all contemplative studio works, but she also enjoys the intimacy of small, traditional egg tempera paintings to capture the light along the province’s rocky shores.

Diana Dabinett was born in 1943 in Bulawayo, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), in central Africa. In 1963, she completed a Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. From 1965 to 1969 she taught in high schools in Zimbabwe and England.

1n 1969 Diana emigrated to London, Ontario, Canada where from 1969 to 1973, she was assistant curator at the Art Gallery of London, now Museum London. In 1975 she moved to Newfoundland and Labrador where for the last 45 years she has maintained a full-time professional studio art practise from her home studio in Shoe Cove. She has exhibited in over 70 solo and group exhibitions.

Work by Diana Dabinett is found in the public collections of The Provincial Art Bank, NL, the City of St. John’s, the Canada Council Art Bank, Foreign Affairs Canada, the University of Western Ontario, and many private collections around the world including Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth 11.

Diana has completed over 15 site-specific commissioned works for public spaces such as the Manuel’s River Hibernia Interpretation Centre, the Deer Lake Airport, the Fluvarium St. John’s, Labrador Health Centre Goose Bay, and the Community Hospital in Monterey, California.