By Roland Cruse
For the News-Gazette
Enjoy quiet moments when viewing Diane Stapleton's exhibit of abstract art, Essential Uncertainty, on display through May 30 at the St. Cloud library. The silence of the library lends itself to these quiet paintings on wood panels. They have a stillness about them, calming and subtle but full of energy.
The works are divided into two series, Road Work and String Theory. They are displayed on the first and second floor of the library and are part of the Osceola County Art in Public Places program.
Road Work is based on roads, the painted lines, the cross walks, the cracks, how they wear away over time. Diane uses wax in her paintings which give the pieces a textured relief, like asphalt on a road. The majority of the pieces are 16×16 inches, with one or two larger ones. Their edges are black and the painting’s predominate with darker grays. Most have larger rectangle shapes that give structure to the paintings. While everywhere small marks of reds, oranges, yellows, and turquoise give a sense of minuscule activity, giving vibrancy and depth to the pieces.
The String Theory panels, also with black edges, are generally larger than the Road Work. What unites them are random continuous lines or “strings” unbroken traversing the panels. The majority of the pieces have repeating horizontal rectangles (like horizontal window blinds) in alternating colors, contrasting color on color for strong effects which are broken by the haphazard strings. There are some mostly black pieces with heavier use of wax giving them a sculpture-like quality.
These paintings are not loud with big splashes of color or dramatic with bold line work screaming for attention. They are full of subtle detail, slight color changes and strong composition. Care, thought and knowledge went into the application of these paintings. They want to be studied in depth and call to the quiet, meditative side of our nature.
For Diane, these paintings represent humankind’s attempts at understanding its place in the universe. In the String Theory pieces Diane sees “the hard horizontal rectangles representing the structures we humans build...create and believe to be true...and the strings represent the unknown changing forces of life. Road Work came about from the simple beauty in everyday things ... a metaphor for the spiritual work we do to become better humans seeking to understand the world around us and our place in it”.
With the understanding of the Artist’s intention these pieces can have more impact. Color not only applied for color’s sake but connected to a unifying vision. Here the art and the artist become more connected and the viewer can understand better why the artist creates their art.
In Diane’s words, “We strive for certainty in most of the decisions we make, and yet we are not the ones with ultimate control over events and outcomes. At some point, faith has to come into play. Faith plays an essential part in our ability to make choices and to take risks. Without faith everything would stay the same, nothing would be dreamt up, nothing would be made. There would be nothing new to experience. Essential Uncertainty offers us hope.”
