I work with paper, pixels, paint, and photos to create works that are most often informed by the concept of impermanence and that use the structure of language (mutable and recombinant elements) as an engine of meaning.

The evolving visual language takes pleasure in the spectacle of disintegration and plays with chaos, logic, and uncertainty.

My current work is often intimate in scale, like the size of an opened book, and invites the viewer to come in close. These small pieces gather like words in a sentence to form larger works or more complex thoughts — a kind of visual poetry or conceptual puzzle. Putting two or more disparate things together often yields a surprising result (for myself and for the viewer as well), which has now become a studio strategy. I’m always on the lookout for the work to evolve beyond my preconceptions.

Over time, I’ve explored impermanence by looking at nature (currently trees), which has become a kind of shorthand for all of nature in decline and a subtle critique of our human-induced climate crisis. Because I often work in collage, these trees were “built” — some became tree houses or ghostly buildings which I’ve dubbed “old haunts,” some referenced the picture itself (in the form of picture frames), and so on. Many of the pieces suggest books either through their scale or format. Some are books — artist books and collage sketchbooks, which have become a central part of my studio practice.

Together, all of this work could be called (in a word) treehousebook.

— Diane Bertolo (2026)