Diana Hyslop

Diana Hyslop lives and works in Johannesburg, South Africa. In her mid twenties she worked for Marvel Comics in London. On her return to South Africa Hyslop joined the film industry working on feature and documentary films. In the late eighties she studied painting at Bill Ainslie’s now legendary Johannesburg Art Foundation followed by two years at Unisa. In the nineties she spent a year at the Santa Monica Fine Arts Studios in California before returning to Johannesburg where she spent time between filming and painting. It was in 1998 that Hyslop committed to full time painting after having her first solo show at the AVA Gallery in Cape Town. In 2002 she joined the Fordsburg Artists Studios (aka the Bag Factory Studios) as a permanent tenant artist. Largely informed by comics and film, Hyslop’s work explores magical realism and a universe of possibilities in which unexpected combinations are viable, all co-exist, and where everything can happen at once. She is interested in the duality of existence, a solitary/social phenomenon though which an eminent encounter can sometimes determine our pathways. And go beyond it. Hyslop has exhibited locally and abroad, and has her work in numerous collections in South Africa and has participated in international art workshops/residencies in Iceland, France, Uruguay, Lamu, Namibia, Botswana, Nambia and Zambia.