THE ANSWER IS NATURE by Diana Shpungin / Artist talk and exhibition opening
Date: 24 May
Time: 19:00
Venue: Salaam Art Temple
Address: 10, Suleyman Rustam street
In her exhibition The Answer Is Nature, interdisciplinary artist Diana Shpungin presents a poetic investigation into the interconnectedness of memory, material, and the natural world. Known for her meticulous graphite-covered sculptures and evocative installations, Shpungin continues her exploration of emotional labor, loss, and healing this time through a lens of ecological reflection. The works in this exhibition draw attention to the vulnerability and resilience found in both nature and human experience, offering a quiet yet powerful meditation on care, fragility, and impermanence.
The accompanying artist talk provides a deeper look into Shpungin’s creative process, thematic concerns, and long-term commitment to hand-based practices. She will share the evolution of her work, touching on her use of drawing as a sculptural act and her ongoing interest in how personal narratives intersect with collective memory and environmental consciousness. Through this conversation, audiences are invited to reflect on the role of tenderness, repetition, and restoration in a time marked by disconnection and ecological crisis. In Shpungin’s world, art becomes a form of remembering, repairing and ultimately reconnecting with what matters.
Diana Shpungin
Diana Shpungin is a Latvian-born American multidisciplinary artist. She is known for her work in drawing, sculpture, installation, performance, video, sound, and hand-drawn pencil animation. Her work explores non-traditional ideas of drawing through sculptural and time-based processes.
Diana Shpungin was born in Riga, Latvia under Soviet rule. As a child she emigrated with her family to the United States, where they settled in New York City. Shpungin earned an MFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York and has taught and lectured at multiple institutions. She is currently an associate professor at Parsons School of Design.
Shpungin’s work often deals with themes of memory, longing, loss, and empathy. Influenced by artists like Felix Gonzales-Torres, Shpungin uses deeply personal motifs and narratives in her drawings, sculptures, and video works, often combined with found objects to emphasize a concept that she refers to as “object empathy”. In her smaller sculptures and larger installations, Shpungin explores objects and architecture to emphasize contrasting themes such as domestic and communal, light and dark, or interior and exterior.
Diana Shpungin has been exhibited extensively in solo and group exhibitions in both national and international venues, including: Bronx Museum of Art, Bronx, NY: Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, NY; Invisible Exports, New York, NY; Marc Straus Gallery, New York, NY; New Discretions, New York, NY; Sculpture Center, Long Island City, NY; Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY; Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; Bass Museum of Art, Miami, FL; Franconia Sculpture Park, Minneapolis, MN; Locust Projects, Miami, FL; MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA; Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL; Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson, AZ; SiTE:LAB, Grand Rapids, MI; Carrousel du Louvre, Paris, France; Fieldgate Gallery, London, England; Futura Center for Contemporary Art, Prague, Czech Republic; Galerie Zurcher, Paris, France; and Tomio Koyama Gallery, Tokyo, Japan.
Shpungin was awarded the Pollock Krasner Foundation Grant (2019/2020), the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship in Sculpture (2017), and several grants from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts (2015, 2020, 2022). She is also the recipient of fellowships and residencies from Art Omi, Bau Institute at Camargo Foundation, Bronx Museum AIM Program, CEC Artslink, Dieu Donne,La Maison Dora Maar, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, MacDowell, and Yaddo.