professional practice

 Diana Ali   

Diana Ali is an artist whose work has many different creative practices, she's a visual artist but also an independent curator, FA lecturer and creative mentor. Diana's early creative studies began at the Manchester MET University where she did a foundation degree in art. Upon completing this she came down to Nottingham and began her BA in fine art at Nottingham Trent Uni. During her studies at both of these places Diana had a huge interest in using alternative materials to create paintings and art pieces, like mud, chocolate, spices and jam. She mentioned she used these mediums due to the financial struggles of being a student and traditional materials being costly. As a student it was really nice to here how she didn't let monetary issues stop her creating great artworks. I have dabbled with a few natural materials like coffees and flowers to paint with so this kind of really excited me and reminded me that there is so much more to experiment with. Diana mentioned that after shed finished her degree she found herself feeling rather lost in her practice. During this time she took many different routes, she became a part time teacher for a number of years, took part in artist residencies and even did an MA in Fine art curating at Sheffield Hallam University. Diana mentioned that after she'd done all of this it led her to question her work, her mediums and networks. At this point she travelled and thinking about these questions she began to connect with people, kept creating and making opportunities for herself. From here she began many global projects, text based projects, curating shows and really delved back into and expanded her artistic world. Diana was reached out to begin Tv presenting in an art mentor capacity throughout many quite successful art shows. After her talk I did go and watch the shows she presented that were still available and they were really great and inciteful. 

I found Diana Ali's talk and creative story to be highly useful for myself and my own practice, she really showed us through her story how its ok to get lost in your practice and take time but also how important it is to persevere and be forward footed. I also liked how she was quite persistent in conveying that opportunities wont always come and find us but that's ok because we can make our own.