Big Fire (Fay Builders 1997)

Abstract

This is a paiting made with acrylic on canvas and depics a fire scene. There is a firetruck in the center and a fireman in front of the truck. There is a blue/green building in the foreground a night sky with blue and plum colors. The painting is very gestural. There are a few scratches in the paint near the top's center. There is writing on the back grame support that reads in black pen an arrow with the word "top". Along the center sideways it has a circled "c" with "Diane Hoffman BiG FiRE (FAY BUilDers May 1997) $1000.00". Artist biography: Diane Hoffman was named an Assistant Professor of Art in 1994. In addition to studio courses, she taught a course entitled "Baroque Painting from Caravaggio to Rembrandt." The course investigated European art ca. 1580-1750. Students were introduced to major artist, subjects, and stylistic developments during this time period. Additional emphasis was placed on issues such as patronage, collecting, technique, women artists, and recent discoveries. Artists covered included Caravaggio, Bernini, Gentileschi, Rembrandt, Vermeer, Velasquez, and Rubens. In 1997 Hoffman's large-scale paintings of the Memphis Fire Department were exhibited at the Invitational Art Exhibit on September 25. Her Clough-Hanson Gallery exhibition in 1995 featured her trauma-themed paintings and expressed the "heroics" of the doctors in the Miami trauma unit. Her solo exhibition at Arkansas State University and her paintings at the Askew Nixon Ferguson Architects "Emerging Artists" exhibition brought her greater attention from the public eye. Her work was featured alongside others' in the Current Faculty Exhibit at the Clough-Hanson Gallery, at the Art Farm Gallery with Hamlett Dobbins in February of 2001, another exhibition entitled "Anything But" was on display in the Clough-Hanson Gallery, and her "Photo-ish" gallery show at Marshall Arts showcased her large-format, digitally-altered prints.