RETIREMENT is often painted as a gentle winding down – a soft landing after a busy career.
For Dianne “Di” Carter, it was more like stepping off a cliff into something entirely new, unknown and, as it turns out, utterly consuming.
After years in education, Di found herself facing that deceptively simple question: what do I do now?
The answer didn’t arrive as a neatly packaged plan. Instead, it unfolded slowly, almost instinctively through paint, through observation, through an ever-growing need to create.
“I do art. I paint. I spend time looking at the work of other artists,” she said.
“I spend a lot of time looking at the way the sun filters through the leaves of the trees, leaving sparkling diamonds and emeralds where the light breaks through.”
Working in mixed media, Di embraces experimentation with an openness that mirrors her subject matter.
Materials are layered, pushed, reworked – not just to replicate nature, but to respond to it. The textures and hues of the earth inform everything, resulting in pieces that feel tactile, grounded, and alive.
And beneath it all is a gentle but persistent message: pay attention. These landscapes are not just aesthetically pleasing – they are worth protecting.
But if you ask Di what it means to be an artist, you won’t get a romanticised answer.
“In my mind, being an artist is about what you do, not what you claim to be,” she said. “Being an artist is an obsession, a compulsion, a driving force to bring something to the world that serves a purpose.
“An artwork can be just beautiful to look at, be amusing, or remind you of a place, a person, a feeling. But I believe art is only art if it connects one person to another.”
That connection, however, doesn’t come easily. Di is refreshingly candid about the internal battles that often accompany creative work.
“Many artists suffer from self-destructive doubt … the big black cloud that makes you question why you are doing what you are doing,” she said.
“Calling yourself an artist has a way of eating into your subconscious … to the point of making you feel like a fraud at times.”
And yet, despite all that, or perhaps because of it, she keeps going.
“It is the compulsion, the drive, the ideas that rattle around in your head that just won’t go away,” she said.
“It is the absolute joy when someone buys a painting that is a part of you and takes it home because they connected with your art.
“My favourite part of the creation process is seeing my work in someone else’s home, a part of their personal story.”
It’s a reminder that art doesn’t live on gallery walls alone – it lives in people, in spaces, in shared experiences.
Her work is currently on show at the Arts Connect Community Art Gallery in Booval Fair Shopping Centre where those connections continue to form, one viewer at a time.
