Artist: Dianne Twombly
Medium: Photographic Digital Collage Print (Limited Edition)
Dimensions: 24'' x 30''

Bidding on this artwork will take place at the Live Auction event, Friday, April 10. Tickets available at the link at dvsa.ca. Absentee bids can also be placed in advance – request a form at the school office or email bid@dvsa.ca.

About This Piece
Sisters is my favourite piece and the one that is most sentimental to me. On a small cloud, tethered to floating liminal buildings are sisters Shirley and Judith, dressed to attend a wedding in the 1950s. These women are very special to me; Shirley was my aunt and Judith is my mother. The soft pastel colour palette and the ethereal nature of the scene are intended to create a sense of peace and safety despite its seeming precariousness. The overall piece speaks to me of optimism—celebrating a future of love alongside a cherished sibling. The buildings in the picture are both from Hamilton, the background was taken from an airplane window but I can’t remember where, the magnolia tree is from my backyard, and the donkey is a resident of the sanctuary in Puslinch, Ontario. This piece was also included in the School of Photographic Arts Ottawa’s Photowalk project and can be found—blown up to a much larger size—on the side of a building in Ottawa’s Little Italy district.

Biography
Dianne Twombly is a Hamilton-based visual artist who photographs then digitally deconstructs abandoned or declining architecture and reimagines the artefacts in more spacious, dream-inspired landscapes that speak of the human connection to lost places. These neglected places—once vibrant and inhabited sites of human activity—can now exist in spectacular worlds, balancing precariously but still grounded... if only on the edge of reality, creating space for personal reminiscence and for contemplation on the ways in which times alters our relationship with both past places and our own past selves. Twombly’s work addresses themes of nostalgia, decay, the passage of time, and transformation in constructed environments. Through her work, she invites the viewer to look more closely at the many layers of the seemingly mundane human spaces we occupy and to see within them a world of new possibilities.

Twombly holds BA and MSW degrees from the University of Toronto, a certificate in Dynamic Media from the Center for Electronic Art in California, and a BFA from York University in Toronto. Her work can be found in private and corporate collections across Canada, including the Scotiabank Art Collection, University of Toronto’s Oak House residence, and in public art projects in Hamilton and Ottawa.