In the light of day | works by Diane Belfiglio

This exhibition closed May 19, 2023
Linn Auditorium, 2nd Floor

This vibrant exhibition, featuring nineteen artworks by North Canton, Ohio-based artist Diane Belfiglio, explores her passion for light, drama, and compositional organization. These powerful oil pastels, acrylics, and watercolor compositions underscore the artist’s interest in architecture, architectural components, and flora and provide viewers with what Belfiglio calls “glimpses of life.”

These highly detailed paintings and drawings reveal Belfiglio’s remarkable ability to organize visual components to better emphasize contrasting elements. For example, the juxtaposition between light and shadow, brilliant and subtle colors, and soft, organic and hard, structural forms demonstrates her desire to create a unique and stylized reality.

Belfiglio is interested in the expressive potential of media. Although she initially resisted watercolor, the artist now finds that it is very amenable to creating the luminosity that she craves in her work. The vibrant and shimmering qualities of her hyper-realistic images of yellow and red tulips, white narcissus, and green agave plants is also evident in her oil pastels of purple crocuses and pink hibiscus flowers. In addition, the bold and vivid qualities found in her acrylic paintings of architecture and architectural elements contribute to a body of work that feels like intimate character studies.

Diane Belfiglio is a Professional Assistant Professor of Art and the Studio Coordinator at Walsh University, North Canton, Ohio and is an active artist who has created numerous community art projects and large-scale mosaic installations. Her work can be found in permanent and private art collections in Ohio and across the nation. Belfiglio was awarded the Ohio Arts Council’s Individual Excellence Award for 2023.

Image Above: Diane Belfiglio (1956–Present), Ruby Radiance, © 2011, oil pastel on paper. On loan from the artist.