This Creative Life: Yours Truly in the Spotlight for ACCI Gallery -November, 2017

A C C I Artist Spotlight

ADRIANA DIAZ

www.adrianadiaz.com

www.yourcreativelifecoach.com

http://thiscreativelife.blogspot.com/

Adriana Diaz is a true creatrix: a prolific mixed media painter, novelist, creative life coach, dancer, and teacher. Her creative magic is in bringing elements of the physical sensuous

world into her paintings, to awaken viewers to the world around them, expanding their presence and sense awareness of the physical world. With this heightened sense of physical presence, Adriana believes we can become more appreciative and literally in touch with the sensual and spiritually alive nature of the inanimate world.

Adriana describes herself as a "crayons first" kid, moving on to major in art, and ultimately becoming a creative life coach, which she practices alongside her painting and writing. She fondly recalls seeing the image of Monet's "Rouen Cathedral in the Mist" at age 18 as the moment she realized that art could be magic. Being of Spanish heritage, Adriana claims a kind of connection to the Spanish painters: Velazquez, Goya, Picasso, and the Catalán artist Tāpies, as their work combines the plastic and aesthetic elements of fine art with their personal political presence, something she strives to achieve in her own work.

Wuthering Heights, Mixed Media Acrylics, 36" x 36"

Adriana finds a kinship between the process of painting and the act of writing. "The physical act of writing often shows up in my paintings as marks and 'found languages,' developed spontaneously without forethought. This connects me to the cultural anthropological phenomenon of languages held within the body of the earth. As if our ancestors put them there for safekeeping, intending them to be discovered by their children's children. The marking also connects me to the scribe who in ancient times was the one who recorded or transferred stories through pictures, then marks that became language."

Adriana rejoined ACCI Gallery in 2015 after an extended hiatus, and has since been an active member and volunteer on the Events committee. She finds the dialog, sensibilities, and work of other artists to be wonderful catalysts for her thinking and imaging. Making intellectual and artistic activities available in the East Bay, meeting other artists and being part of the joint creative presence at ACCI Gallery are part of what keeps her creative spirit engaged.