Diane Henshaw is an Irish artist living in Fermanagh, originally from Islandmagee on the Antrim coast she works full time from her studio in Tempo.
The series of work Overland and Borders is an imagined journey, pensive pieces which Diane made over lockdown 2022. Diane’s work is known for its paired down lines and formulated composition. her artistic process displays the history of marks from past decisions, of the time spent and the material layers used to build up her images. the overall success depends upon combining its parts into a cohesive, spontaneous unity.
In her work she explores the term dinnseanchas, which refers to an ancient genre of mythological geography that gave a poetic account of place names. Dinner mean place (an eminent site or locale) and Sean means old, and is associated with the figure of the seanchai or local storyteller, the keeper of lore and memory. Chas means to twist. Poetically, the word suggests the twisting together of strands of collective memory of place forming a single narrative or a visual idiom.
