• I use my work to process my emotions about a specific event or series of events, and to give voice to those emotions so that others may “hear” them, too. I believe the most interesting space in photography today is where the artist can combine digital techniques with hand-worked processes to produce one-of-a-kind works. I often use beauty as a conceit to entice a viewer to look at an ugly truth or hidden secret that they might otherwise not consider.

    I work in multiple kinds of media. I believe that materials have mana, so, whenever possible, I use the media that I feel lends the most meaning to any given project. Though there are not always material similarities between the different projects, they are linked by recurring formal concerns, subject matter. and methodology. Process is always an integral part of the statement and the work.

    Every warrior has a weapon; art is mine.

  • Diana Nicholette Jeon’s internationally exhibited work explores universal themes of loss, dreams, memory, and female identity via metaphor and personal narrative. She brings a sense of her personal history and experimental processes to her lens-based art. Jeon uses beauty as a conceit to engage viewers with challenging subject matter. Jeon believes media has mana* and often uses it to underscore the conceptual underpinning of a series. While almost all her work begin’s with a lens, she employed digital and traditional media and processes to transform the work to her own, often mixed media works. Jeon also works with printmaking, video and sound production, either separately or in conjunction with her photographic work.

    Before returning to school to pursue her long-time first love of art, Jeon spent 10 years working in high tech. Perhaps due to her experiences working in California's Silicon Valley, she fell in love with Photoshop when she first encountered it in 1994. In school, she gravitated immediately to digital tools, while still pursuing training in traditional media. She attended the University of Hawaii where she received a BA in Studio Art, then relocated with her husband and toddler way to Maryland to earn an MFA in Imaging and Digital Art from the University of Maryland at Baltimore County in 2006. Afterward, she and her family returned to Hawaii, where she spent seven years teaching digital imaging and motion graphics at the college level. In 2013, she decided to plunge into producing her art on a full-time basis.

    Jeon's work has been exhibited in over 200 solo and group exhibitions and film screenings internationally. She has mounted solo exhibitions at Honolulu Museum of Art (HI), Griffin Museum of Photography (MA); Blue Sky Gallery (OR); Garage Gallery (NY), HeadOn Photo Festival, Disorder Gallery (Sydney AU), Honolulu Printmakers (HI), A Smith Gallery (TX), and Kirsch Gallery (HI). Group exhibition venues include: BBA Gallery (DE), Calgary Contemporary (AB), California Museum of Photography (CA), Capitol Modern Museum (formerly called the Hawaii State Art Museum), COPA Gallery (TH), Foley Gallery (NY), Gallery MCC (FR), Griffin Museum of Photography (MA), Honolulu Museum of Art (HI), Maine Museum of Photographic Arts (ME), Millepiani (IT), Mira Forum (PT), Museu de Lamego (PT),  Museo di Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Trento e Rovereto (IT), PH21 Gallery at Barcelona (ES), PH21 Gallery (HU), Rhode Island Center for the Photographic Arts (RI), the Romanian Embassy at Paris (FR) the San Diego Art Institute (CA), Soho Photo (NY), Southeast Center for Photography (SC), Tethys Gallery (IT). Festival participation includes solo, group and award exhibitions at the Capture (BC), Exposure (AB), Gala Awards 5th Biennial of Fine Art & Documentary Photography (ES), Head On (AU), Medium (CA), Month of Photography Denver (CO), and PhotoNOLA (LA), Photo Festivals.

    Jeon’s work has been recognized with multiple honors and awards, including four Recognition Purchase Awards from the Hawaii State Foundation of Art and Culture. Additional recognition includes the Julia Margaret Cameron Award, LensCulture B+W Awards, Photolucida Critical Mass Top 200, the Analog Sparks Awards, the Prix de la Photographie Paris Awards, Mira Mobile Prize, HeadOn Awards, the Moscow Photo Awards, and the Mobile Photo Awards, among others.

    The Huffington Post, Lens Culture, FRAMES Magazine In the In-Between, The Hand, Don't Take Pictures, Binfeng Space Art/Culture magazine, PhotoPhore, Corriere della Sera, FRAMES Magazine, Gente di Fotografia, B+W Magazine, SHOTS, Pf, Don't Take Pictures, and Lenscratch are among the media outlets that featured her work.

    Jeon’s work is in both public and private collections, including for works in the permanent collection of the State of Hawaii Art in Public Places program, the International Printing Museum, the Albert O. Kuhn Library Special Collections Department at University of Maryland Baltimore County, and Haverford College.

    Jeon writes about photography for OneTwelve Publications and FRAMES magazine. She resides in Honolulu, HI with her husband and son.

  • 2017 PLAYA at Summerlake, Summerlake, OR.

    Awarded a 4-week, fully funded artist residency

    2017 Double Dog Dare Studio, Kauai, HI.

    One week Photo-litho and Monoprint residency

  • 2006 MFA Imaging and Digital Arts, UMBC, Catonsville MD

    2003 BA Studio Art, University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, Honolulu, HI

  • 2007 – 2013

    Lecturer, New Media Arts. Kapi'olani Community College, Honolulu, HI / Intro to Digital Art; Digital Imaging; Motion Graphics; Digital Multimedia

    Fall 2010

    Lecturer, Chaminade University, Honolulu, HI / Communications Design

    2008 – 2010

    Lecturer, Art. University of Hawai'i at Manoa, Honolulu, HI / Expanded Art (Digital Art and Theory)

    Spring 2006

    Instructor of Record, Printmaking. UMBC, Catonsville, MD / Photo-Digital Processes in Non-Toxic Printmaking

    Fall 2005

    Instructor of Record, Printmaking. UMBC, Catonsville, MD / Introduction to Non-Toxic Printmaking

    Spring 2005

    Teaching Assistant, Photography. UMBC, Catonsville, MD / Time and Sequence

    Fall 2004

    Teaching Practicum, Printmaking. University of Maryland at Baltimore County, Catonsville, MD / Introduction to Non-Toxic Printmaking

    Spring 2000

    Instructor. Kapi'olani Community College, Non-Credit Division, Honolulu, HI / Introduction to Photoshop