Episode 17: Sean Diediker

Leroy talks to Sean Diediker about the genesis of his career. ... Sean Diediker is a painter's painter. His sweeping, faceted brushstrokes and painterly surfaces generate works that reveal the artist's sensitivity to his medium and attention to the act of painting itself. Diediker assembles bold colors, chiaroscuro and a cutting-edge sense of design to create a highly original body of work that separates him from his contemporaries. His imagery captures biblical allegories, narratives and concepts and renders them contemporary. Classical iconography, in Diediker's hands, becomes a thoroughly modern symbolic language that is fresh, visually striking, and germane to our times. "To me," states Diediker, "they seem to represent timeless ideas and situations. I have made an attempt to take these biblical concepts and, through contemporary subject matter, bring them closer to the viewer." What the viewer is brought closer to are portraits, still-lives, landscapes and combinations of these forms that are balanced and timeless. All of Diediker's works are tied together by their solid sense of form and compositional structure. Whatever he paints, the same expressive vision and reaction to subject and medium are present. "I enjoy the whole creative process, taking an idea and constructing a painting around it," states Diediker, whose father is a general contractor, "I feel I paint much in the same way that my father would erect a building. Much thought in planning, careful design, step by step and layer upon layer, until the work is done and standing on its own." The eldest of four brothers, Diediker is originally from Newbury Park, California. After his formal training in Fine Arts, he has lived and worked in the Rocky Mountains of Utah and has just recently returned from a year-long trek around the world. Travel and environment are important to the artist. "I enjoy using subjects that are tangible to me," states Diediker, "You might say that my work is directly affected by where I'm living, the people, city, landscape; the things I see every day. I enjoy observing the stimulus and reaction of different human situations. Environment should affect and artist's work; If it doesn't, you're painting decorations." Available works ... CANVASING THE WORLD   A unique human-interest, half-hour television series told from the perspective of a painter. “I enjoy merging the techniques of old-world masters with modern-day media to create and share unique windows into humanity.” Sean Diediker – Host/Filmmaker/Artist. A modern-day marriage of Jack Kerouac’s “On The Road” and Humans of New York, Canvasing The World details host Sean Diediker’s quest to explore the interplay between art and the human condition. The series takes viewers on adventures to exotic locations to explore creativity, absorb cultural diversity, and reveal the places that spark the inspiration for Sean’s original paintings. Canvasing Santa Fe, New Mexico Episode ... Produced by Leah Garcia Music by Mozart Gabriel Abeyta