About
Artist Statement
I am a figurative artist who explores themes of transformation, struggle, and identity through drawing. I work with a variety of media, including painting, printmaking, and digital tools, in addition to traditional drawing implements like charcoal, pen, and pencil. As a powerful tool of inquiry and improvisation, drawing is how I respond to life and cultivate further curiosity about it. While working directly from life is vital to my practice, most final images come from imagination or memory, forming a personal narrative. I embrace visible evidence of the process and welcome mistakes, which allow the work to evolve authentically and organically. Through this, I live a more examined life, and hope the final images can be instruments for others to do the same.
Biography
Michael Loren Diaz, born in Tampa, FL, received an MFA in Drawing & Painting from Arizona State University in 2019 and a BFA in Drawing & Printmaking from University of Central Florida in 2016. Diaz’s artwork is shown nationally, notably being included several times in the annual Drawn exhibition at Manifest Gallery. He has won several awards such as the Elizabeth Greenshields Foundation Grant and the American Austrian Foundation Seebacher Prize, as well as being a finalist for the 2019 AXA Art Prize. Diaz currently resides in Tampa and is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of Tampa.
Please send all inquires to michael.loren.diaz@gmail.com