I am an English born artist, now living in the Santa Cruz Mountains, Northern California. My work has evolved through glass/mixed media, sculpture, installation and photography to include video and sound installation. The media is dictated by the project concept. In 1980 I researched and helped to revive the French glassmaking process of Pâte de verre. Examples of this work are in the collections of museums worldwide. These include the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris. Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Contemporary Art Collection Tate Gallery, London. National Museum of Scotland. LA County Museum, Hokkaido Museum of Modern Art, Japan. kunstsammlungen De Vest Coburg, Germany. Cooper Hewitt, NY. Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY. Toledo Museum of Art. Montreal Museum of Fine Art, and more.
My work arises from my strong connection to the land and the interrelatedness of all the life of our cosmos. I encourage appreciation of the beauty and the complexity of common insects and plants perceived as pests or weeds, whose diversity is crucial to the survival of life on our planet. My recent project in Iceland incorporated impressions taken directly from the land and peeled away as a memory of the earth itself. I went on to work in the same way with California’s Coastal Redwoods. Working directly with the land at the Arboretum, UC Santa Cruz in the New Zealand meadow I created a a permanent installation. It is a place to meditate or sit quietly to listen to nature. In my current project I am working with the wild plants in a particular habitat in the Redwoods and chaparral of the Santa Cruz mountains.
Current projects:
2021 – NATURE, Speaking Clearly – Grasses, Weeds and Wild surprises. Wild plants from a redwood and chaparral habitat in the Santa Cruz Mountains, California, are pressed and scanned as portraits.
2013 – extensive project – ‘Fragile Memories’, paper impressions taken from Iceland’s basalt columns to the redwoods of Northern California.
2012 – July/August, artist residency at Baer Arts Centre in north west Iceland — Memory; impressions taken directly from the land.
Exhibitions:
2018 — Into Being the River, video Installation at Saint Mary’s College Museum, Moraga, California.
2017 — Environmental installations at the Arboretum, UC Santa Cruz, California.
2015 – Fragile Memories, Solo retrospective at the Vessel Gallery, Oakland – http://www.vessel-gallery.com
2015 – Notions of Romance, group show, Vessel Gallery, Oakland – http://www.vessel-gallery.com
2015 – Incense for the Void, a tribute to Stephen Lynch, Apricity Gallery, Tannery, Santa Cruz.
2014 – Forces and Perceptions, China Brodsky Gallery, Thoreau Center for Sustainability, SF.
2013 – Fragile Memories, 50 impressions taken from the Redwoods of Northern California – 50/50 show, Sanchez Gallery, Pacifica, CA.
2013 – Dan Klein & Alan Poole Collection on loan from the National Museums of Scotland
2012 – Studio presentation, Baer Arts Center, Iceland.
2012 – Moth Portraits, Your Art Here, Cabrillo Gallery, Santa Cruz CA
2011 – ‘Yellow Moth’ video, in Collaboration with Cormac Faulkner for his installation/performance ‘Beacon of Light Requiem’ Coventry, UK.
2011 – Papillons de Nuit, outdoor night screening, Museum of Art and History Santa Cruz, California.
2011 – Transducere, a group exhibition of Bay Area artists at Root Division, San Francisco.
2010 – Papillons de Nuit, first outdoor screening at ArtPad, San Francisco.
diana hobson 