Who’s Next: Diana Rice

Age: 24 • Lives and creates: Akron • Learned: BFA in Painting and Drawing from The University of Akron

Diana Rice draws on a dream-like sense of nostalgia to investigate moments from her childhood, creating connections to the past, present and future at the same time. 

Her paintings and drawings are often built into earthy, ruminative quilts, incorporating materials like wood and rope. 

“I want to bring back the nostalgic feelings from memories that I have, but also still communicate some kind of story,” she says during an interview in her studio at Summit Artspace in Akron. 

Growing up in Lodi with an artist father, Rice always wanted to work in the arts and also considered architecture and interior design. She chose The University of Akron for college in part because it felt like home, she says. Rice also noticed prolific artists graduating from the university, such as Alexandria Couch, who was profiled in Canvas’ Who’s Next series in 2021. 

“I went in knowing what I wanted, and I finished knowing what I wanted which is kind of rare,” Rice says of deciding to pursue her Bachelor of Fine Arts in painting and drawing with a minor in illustration. 

Rice’s artwork uses flowy lines and shapes to articulate memories poetically. She often sketches her art in watercolor, then turns it into an oil painting. And as of recently, she sews canvases together to create larger quilted pieces. Her quilts long for the past but reflect on ruminations continuing into the present, using repetition to show the feeling which her observers can then interpret for themselves. She considers them like a sketchbook, where her distinct pieces are connected to tell a larger story, she says.

Her process involves writing out memories, which lately have been related to trees of her childhood.

“We had all these trees on our property, and my parents still live on that property and all the trees are just disappearing one by one. It just feels so jarring. It’s like a memorial for the trees,” she says of her recent artwork. 

She points to a piece in the works, abstractly depicting a magnolia tree. She’s using a staining technique that gives “a childlike application to the painting – maybe how a child would portray the tree, in a way,” she says.

A major exhibition highlight for Rice was her first solo show, held at KINK Contemporary in Cleveland’s Waterloo Arts District in spring 2023. The show, “Notes of Periphery,” focused on her personal history, taking inspiration from poetry, literature, folklore and her own writing. She aimed to reflect her internal memories while also making the art open enough for a viewer’s understanding of the world she created. 

Rice calls the exhibit experience “so exciting” as she was able to show at an independent Cleveland gallery solo while still a student, thanks in part to a connection she made with gallery co-owner McKenzie Beynon, who was a graduate student at Akron at the time. KINK Contemporary  – which planned to close its storefront Nov. 30 – has been “empowering” to emerging artists, Rice says. 

Another highlight during Rice’s time at the university was receiving a travel award to attend the Venice Biennale in Italy in 2022. She says it was “really transformative to see international artists and what’s going on in the world of art. Sometimes it’s hard to get outside your bubble – even your internet bubble – just to see what artists are doing. That was a big deal for me.”

Since graduating in 2023, Rice says a challenge has been balancing her artistic practice while working full time in reception at a hair and nail salon in Wadsworth. 

“Time has been a big thing in the past year since I graduated,” she says. “Just trying to make a living and also having time to do my art on the side, it’s definitely more difficult than I thought it was going to be.”

However, Rice has been part of group shows and received an emerging arts residency at Summit Artspace which she began right after graduation. The residency gives her two years of studio space and allows her to participate in shows and sell her work in the arts complex, among other resources. Currently, she has several works on view in the first-floor lobby and is in the beginning stages of planning a collaborative show with Alexia Avdelas, another resident artist at Summit Artspace and 2023 Akron graduate. She’s also working on incorporating more found materials in her artwork, she says. 

Moreover, Rice feels fortunate to be part of the welcoming Akron arts community, her chosen home for the time being.

“It’s really close-knit, there’s a lot of activity between the art school and the galleries here,” she says. “… Everybody just helps each other out and shows up for each other.”  

– Amanda Koehn

WHAT OTHERS SAY

“Diana Rice transforms the poetry of everyday Northeast Ohio life into something extraordinary. Through her innovative blend of intimate drawings, paintings and large-scale paper quilts, she captures the fleeting moments and memories we all experience but rarely celebrate. Her technically skilled work draws viewers in with approachable symbolism while elevating these seemingly mundane encounters and objects into profound shared experiences. Though early in her career, she demonstrates the kind of artistic maturity and commitment that strengthens our regional arts community.”

McKenzie Beynon, co-owner, KINK Contemporary

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