Diane Meyer received a BFA in Photography from New York University, Tisch School of the Arts in 1999 and an MFA in Visual Arts from The University of California, San Diego in 2002. She has been living in Los Angeles since 2005 where she is an Associate Professor of Photography at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. She has received grants from METRO Los Angeles (2013), The City of Santa Monica Department of Cultural Affairs (2010) and many more. Her work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions at the Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester; the 18th Street Art Center, Santa Monica; AIR Gallery, NYC and The Society for Contemporary Photography, Kansas City; as well as numerous group shows around the world. Today we share Diane’s body of work titled Berlin.
Berlin
“I have been working on a series of embroidered photographs taken in the city of Berlin. Sections of the photographs have been obscured by crossstitch embroidery sewn directly into the photograph forming a pixelated version of the underlying image. The images were taken in the city center as well as in the suburbs where I followed the former path of the Berlin Wall.
I was particularly interested in photographing locations where no visible traces of the actual wall remain, but in which there are subtle clues of its previous existence. These clues include incongruities in the architecture that occurred as new structures were built on newly opened land parcels, changes in street lights or newer vegetation.
In addition to the physical aspects that point to the former division of the city, I am interested in the psychological weight of these sites. In many of the images, the embroidered sections of the photograph represent the exact scale and location of the former Wall offering a pixelated view of what lies behind.
In this way, the embroidery becomes a trace in the landscape of something that no longer exists, but is a weight on history and memory. As the embroidery takes the form of digital pixilation, I am making a connection between forgetting and digital file corruption. The embroidery emphasizes the unnatural boundaries created by the wall itself and provides a literal contrast to the concrete of the wall and a metaphorical contrast to its symbolism.”
To view more of Diane’s work please visit his website.