Diane Chappalley, Ceramic wall installation, 2023
In Diane Chappalley's work both death and creation appear to occupy a liminal space between dreamlike mysticism and tangible earthiness. Living things emerge from and also disappear back into the landscapes, suggesting a cycle of life and death that draws vivid parallels between tomb and womb as sites of creativity. The human figures are painted in grey or neutral colours, as if carved from stone; statues lost in time. Surrounded by flowers in their state of becoming, the body of work is a proposition of what once was, what is, and what can become.
The ceramics series of ‘Anxious Flowers’ borrows from Louise Bourgeois’ logics of catharsis and sculpture making. Bourgeois could only ever truly exorcise something if she could see it in three dimensions. Similarly, Chappalley manifests her anxiety physically using the simple poetics of a fragile flower balancing on its own petals. Although the flowers are symbolic of a vulnerable psychological state, they also bear a quiet resilience.
Recent exhibitions include: Constellation, Solo show, Lychee One Gallery, London, UK (2023); Landscape, Taymour Grahne Project, London, UK (2022); Conversation with Memory, Group Show, Cedric Bardawil, London UK (2022); FIGHT or FLIGHT?, The Bakery, Roman Road Gallery, London UK (2020); The present is already gone, two person show with Antonia Showering, Chalton Gallery, London, UK (2018); Residency exhibition, Unit1 Gallery, London, UK (2018).