JT NOIR 9

Artist Biography

Born in Boston, Diane headed west to study at Stanford University and the San Francisco Art Institute. After a decade in the Bay Area, she moved south to Los Angeles to work as a commercial artist for the entertainment industry.

Moving to Joshua Tree in 1995, she continued working freelance for Los Angeles animation studios, but over time shifted the focus of her talent to capturing the intense drama of the desert landscape surrounding her.

Diane’s work has been presented in solo and group exhibits throughout the country, including shows at the Carnegie Museum (with a painting in their permanent collection), the Southwest Museum (part of the Autry Center of the American West), a solo show of her Shack photos in NYC, and the Joshua Treenial 2015-2023. Her moving image work has been shown at several film fests, the Exploratorium in San Francisco, and in music videos.

She has taught drawing workshops for the Desert Institute in Joshua Tree National Park, been chosen as a National Park artist to represent Joshua Tree, and has been profiled in publications such as: Palm Springs Life, Lifescapes: West Coast Art & Design, Art Patron Magazine, Galerie Magazine, and a KCET documentary for Artbound.


Working off of the tradition of the American conservationist artists of the 19th century, Best strives to update landscape painting and film making, utilizing contemporary theories of perception that have been influenced by deep ecology, photography, cinema, digital imaging, and animation.