Diane Appaix-Castro is a French and Spanish sculptor and experiential installation artist born in Paris, France. She grew up in Cambridge, Massachusetts from age four, and is currently based in New Orleans, Louisiana. She holds an MFA in Sculpture from Tulane University and a BFA from The New England School of Art and Design at Suffolk University. In 2020 she was awarded first place in DIY Art for the show titled Reconnecting in Quarantine at Tulane Hillel. In 2021, Diane received the SLA Graduate Student Summer Research and Write-Up Fellowship Grant and participated in the Southern Heat Exchange Online Residency. She has been a member of The Front, an artist collective in New Orleans since February 2023.
Her work is strongly informed by her experience as an immigrant living at the intersection of three distinct cultures. This experience living as a Third Culture Kid* offered her views into simultaneous truths, which is how she now views the world. As a young kid, she was often tasked with preparing meals for her mother and younger sister. This, along with watching her grandmothers cook, inspired culinary pursuits which, mixed with an interest in amateur science, often finds its way into her works. She also was inspired as a young child by her great-grandfather’s workshop. Although she never met him, his tools and moulds which helped him to create the first wearable contact lens, serve as inspiration in her pursuits to view things differently.
Aspects of her practice involve researching cross-cultural scientific and philosophical thinking, marine biology, and outer space to expand her vision of the possible as well as wonder what may lie beyond the limits of our perception. Additionally, Diane looks to and questions Western empirical science and the scientific method. Her work is presented as sensorily complex universes, worlds, and experiences. While science is the guide of her practice, the suspension of disbelief and world-making opens the door to possibilities beyond what science can currently offer. Diane wants to point at that door and acknowledge that there is more outside of what our bodies can interpret to create a deeper empathy for the unknown.
Additionally, Diane curates and manages the nonprofit art gallery, Studio Appaix.
* TCKs move between cultures before they have had the opportunity to fully develop their personal and cultural identity.[3] The first culture of such individuals refers to the culture of the country from which the parents originated, the second culture refers to the culture in which the family currently resides, and the third culture refers to the distinct cultural ties among all third culture individuals that share no connection to the first two cultures (Wikipedia)