Artospective: Portrait Paintings by Ethan Diehl from United States.

"Golden Hour" 24" x 36", oil on canvas

An Interview with Ethan Diehl.

Who and where are you from?

In the early 70s, I was born in Austin, Texas. I grew up in Iowa City, Iowa. Texans think big (or at least they used to), and Iowans are all about hard work. It's a good combination for an artist.

How you got into this?

Making art has always been part of my life. Coloring with crayons and markers. Making skyscrapers in my bedroom with wooden blocks. Sculpting (poorly) with clay. Writing. The works. My hometown is known internationally as a "City of Literature", so being creative was always encouraged. I started painting with oil paints when I was a student at Stanford, and it was pretty much the only thing I did well, so I've kept doing it.

What is your driving force?

To keep an even keel. For whatever reason, the world seems a lot less crazy, and threatening a place, when I'm painting. I get to go down the proverbial rabbit hole for months at a time when I'm locked in on a painting.

What kind of work you do and why?

Don't adjust your monitor. The images of my oil paintings are not poorly photographed. My works actually are made up of tens of thousands of 1/6" x 1/6" squares. I started painting with a hand drawn grid system, and a single, flat 0 brush, in 1998. Most of my paintings are in black and white because I'm colorblind, and photography, and film noir, have always appealed to me. The subjects of my works are friends and family, but the imagery tries to present the viewer with a snapshot of an inner narrative.