Diane McGregor

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Inspired by the vast desert spaces of the American West, my abstract oil paintings are minimalist meditations upon the landscape, the light, and the elements. Using the discipline and repetition of the grid, my process is both methodical and intuitive. Foreground and background are meticulously woven together onto the painting's intricate surface. The lines of the grid are formed by allowing thin slivers of underpainting to remain exposed. Shapes and textures are created by revealing and concealing the underlying layers of paint. Painterly gestures and fugitive forms float within the stillness of the grid, and the slow process of building up the layers of paint becomes a meditative, contemplative practice. Artifacts of this process are carefully considered, and are either retained or released in service to the harmony of the whole. Cumulative and reductive, organic and geometric, revealed and concealed -- the elements of the composition gradually move toward a state of intuitive order and balance. My involvement with each canvas becomes an intimate, ritualized experience, which is heightened by the repetitive, almost devotional application of the grid itself.