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In Petra, Jordan, colour is not something applied, but something revelaed. Formed over centuries by water, light and erosion, it emerges from the landscape itself. The rock carries traces of time, creating surfaces that feel bot hancietn and alive.
The Petra, the Nabateans and Colour (Dzene, 2025) study explores that tension - how something so grounded in geology and environment can feel intensely expressive, and so closely resemble how a character is made.
For me Petra became a way of seeing colour differently - as tangible and untangable cultural heritage. Layers of mineral, climate and history - in addition to mastery of a nation in harmony with nature - create a visual language tha is constantly chaning.
I explore how colour can hold environmental and cultural memory. My aim is not to recerate Petra, but translate its atmosphere, presence and a play with what was and is.
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Lake Como works, part of the Journeys perspective, emerge from almost a decade of returning to the lake in different seasons and moods. Each painting captures the timeless dialogue between water, mountains, and sky, rediscovered with every visit.
Every time I go to the lake, it offers me something new. About itself and me.
My favorite time on the lake is winter - when the Alps wear their white crowns and locals gather in cafés along the shore. In that quiet season, the lake reveals its most intimate face: serene and happy.
The vilages around the Lake Como are like different parts of the same city - just like in Paris, Vienna or New York - with differnet districs, each with its own name, representing a specific crowd, mood and subculture - carrying knowledge only known by locals. I had the priviledge of staying and working at almost all vilages to South from Mennagio. More to explore.
Construction (Dzene, 2025) study is both a metaphor and process - a transformation that begins by dismantling the familiar and reconstructing it into a new reality. This creative reconfiguration reveals reality as fluid, shaped by ideas, perceptions, and feelings.
Undergoing personal change feels like living on a construction site: the old lies in ruins, the new exists only in sketches, and all around you are remnants of what once was. Old structures with layers of experience are still working but becoming more wobbly, like a dear ladder that doesn’t fit for the height needed. There are tools for building what comes next, and everything is a little dirty, unsteady, and unfinished—yet hopeful and intriguing.
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Diāna Dzene is a figurative and landscape artist from Riga, Latvia, now based in Vienna, Austria. She works in a slow, methodical, layered oil painting technique and is internationally recognised for her sense of light and colour.
An attentive observer of people, places and culture, Diāna is drawn to the stories that shape how we experience the world. Her inspiration comes from travel, history, architecture, cinema and everyday encounters that reveal unexpected meaning beneath the surface.
Whether exploring distance landscapes, personal transformation or family life, her artworks begin with curiosity. Through colour atmosphere and observation, she seeks to preserve moments that might otherwise pass unnoticed and to reveal the extraordinary within the ordinary.
Diāna’s work explores three recurring perspectives: Construction, Journeys and Family.
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2025 Paris Art Expo (France) group exhibition of selected artists.
2024 Arte Laguna Prize (Italy) group exhibition of international jury-selected finalists, representing Austria.
2023 Private view (Austria) - solo exhibition at Diāna Dzene’s Vienna art studio.
2022 Vestiena plein art show (Latvia) - group exhibition of established artists of Latvia.
2022 Art of Water, James May Gallery (USA) - group exhibition of selected artists.
2021 Top picked artist by Rebecca Wilson, Chief Curator, Art Advisory at Saatchi ArtGallery (UK).
2021 London Art Biennale (UK) - national representative of Latvia, group exhibitionof jury-selected artists.
2020 Representation by Valentinarte Art Gallery in Bellagio (Italy).
2018 Tax Collection gallery (USA) - group online exhibition of select artists.
2017 Conception Arts (USA) - jury-selected group exhibition in Manhattan.
2015 Saatchi art showdown (UK) - online group exhibition of jury-selected emerging artists.
For collaborations, commisions or questions - contact Diāna's team via hello@dianadzene.com or on Instagram @diana.dzene.art.
Diāna's works are available at her studios in Vienna and Riga, and online at Saatchi Art gallery.