Diane Ostoich

Bio

Dianne Ostoich was born and raised in Vancouver, B.C., in the lap of the West Coast rainforest. Her beginning years were spent exploring the myriad paths winding through the woods where she developed a strong love of trees. That love radiates from her work. Dianne, who studied at Langara College, Vancouver School of Art and the University of B.C., works with oil paints on canvas and with oil pastels on rag paper. She likes to paint large canvases reflecting the size of her subject matter but she also paints vignettes which are still able to evoke the majesty of the forest. Dianne paints the serenity and peacefulness that nature offers us. She invites the viewer into the canvas to walk down the pathways. She likes especially the play of light and dark, sunlight and shadow. As you stroll down the paths of her work you feel the heat of the sun and the coolness of the shadows. Shafts of sunlight filter through dense groves of evergreens. The dance of dappled light and deep shadows creates an almost abstract pattern.

Dianne has been involved with the art world for the past thirty years. In the mid seventies she co-founded Crown Lithographic Printers, in Vancouver, which was a custom printing house dedicated to producing high quality hand pulled original lithographs. Working in close collaboration with such artist as Jack Shadbolt, Leslie Poole, Takao Tanabe and the Haida artist Bill Reid, to name but a few, was a wonderful experience giving insight as to how each individual artist approached their art.

In the mid eighties she opened a gallery in conjunction with the print shop featuring local artist as well as her own work. After running the gallery for fifteen years the demand for her work made it difficult to manage both, so happily now she concentrates solely on her painting.

Her works are in many private and corporate collections as well as permanent collections in Universities and public museums.