This piece is in the UNK Discovery Hall.

Diana Behl is an artist and educator based in Brookings, SD. She holds an MFA and MA in Printmaking from The University of Iowa, a BFA in Two-Dimensional and Design Studies from Bowling Green State University, and is an Associate Professor in the School of Design at South Dakota State University. Behl has received grants from the Bush (in 2008) and Griffith Foundations (2011-2019) and the South Dakota Arts Council (in 2011 and 2015) to support her artistic and teaching practices, which are rooted in traditional and expanded printmaking processes and works on paper.

Artist Statement:

The inherent seriality and repetition possible in print media is used to map a generative process of discovery. I approach printmaking as an extension of drawing, which is enhanced by the aspects of chance inherent in acid etching or color printing processes.

My images are built by more of these interactions entering into (and exiting) the picture plane. The intaglio process has the capacity to record history, to document a passage of time. Every mark made is embedded into the metal. Even deletions play a roll in the final proof. Cutting, unfolding, and rearranging: this flexibility enables trial-and-error and happenstance maneuvering through imagined spaces. My works explore compositional possibility, dissonant surfaces, and aim to manipulate a print or drawing in “cinematic variation”. These activities and the final works function as records of a lived experience.