Diana Newton, artist & ax wielder
"Every time I have a problem,
I have confronted it with
the ax of art."
--Yayoi Kusama
Specific artistic influences on this installation include:
- Guo Pei's 2018 couture collection, L'architecture
- The Met's 2022 exhibit, The Tudors: Art and Majesty in Renaissance England
- Sieve Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, 1583, oil painting by Quentin Metsys the Younger
- Rainbow Portrait of Elizabeth I, c. 1600, oil painting attributed to Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger or Isaac Oliver
- Orestes Pursued By The Furies, 1921, oil painting by John Singer Sargent
After spending decades developing leaders in the business world, I now feel an undeniable drive to create--and to do so in the service of the issues that matter to me most. I have left the constraints of corporate life and plunged into the creative cauldron of social protest.
The words of Yayoi Kusama above speak directly to my approach. I feel called to create art as a vehicle that promotes awareness, sparks dialogue, and inspires action in support of women and the LGBT communities whose basic rights are being curtailed in a severe conservative backlash.
I first swung my artistic ax behind a video camera to create an award-winning documentary film, The Ties That Bind (2017—now streaming on PBS NC), about my own family's response to my sister's gender transition.
With the 2022 overturning of Roe v. Wade, I am confronting the assault on reproductive rights so that women can achieve genuine autonomy over their own bodies and lives.