Diana Jean Puglisi (b. 1988 in Brooklyn, NY) is an interdisciplinary artist, feminist, community organizer, and educator that lives and works in Rutherford, NJ. Puglisi graduated with an MFA from Massachusetts College of Art and Design (Boston, MA), where she was awarded the Beker Family Scholarship and Graduate Dean Scholarship, and a BFA from William Paterson University (Wayne, NJ) where she was awarded a full-tuition scholarship for academic excellence. Puglisi is currently Curator of Education at the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase College, SUNY. During her tenure at the museum she has designed panels and programs that have brought notable artists, critics, and scholars.
Puglisi received a 2017 New Jersey State Council on the Arts Individual Fellowship in Sculpture. She has been an artist-in-residence at Vermont Studio Center, Big Red & Shiny, Gallery 263, and Virginia Commonwealth University. Her work has been exhibited at a variety of galleries nationally, including Bridgette Mayer Gallery (Philadelphia, PA), Ria x Gallery (Montclair, NJ), University of Arizona Joseph Gross Gallery (Tucson, AZ), Wavelength Space (Chattanooga, TN), William Paterson University Galleries (Wayne, NJ), SOIL Gallery (Seattle, WA), Alfa Gallery (Miami, FL), subSamson (Boston, MA), Institute of Contemporary Art (Boston, MA), and Kathryn Schultz Gallery (Cambridge, MA). She has been included in flat files at Deanna Evans Projects (Brooklyn, NY) and Collar Works (Troy, NY). Her work has been featured by Art Uncovered Podcast, The Drawing Center (New York, NY), Big Red & Shiny (Boston, MA), and The Social Distance Art Project (London, UK).
She was a Co-Director of BOSSCRITT (2021-2023), a critique community that volunteered its time to support emerging artists, who was a recipient of a 2021 Collective Futures Fund Grant from Tufts University Art Galleries as part of the Regional Regranting Program of the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
Through sculpture, textiles and drawing, Puglisi transforms and recontextualizes objects associated with women’s work, such as thimbles, sewing pins, lint rollers, dresses and pincushions, to try to understand it thoroughly and in a context different from its original. She creates scenarios between forms and materials that reflect parallel narratives to our lived experience while questioning the way arrangement and interaction can anthropomorphize them. Her forms allude to the human body, growths, plants, insects, sea creatures, candy, and microcosms. They become relics of relics themselves exploring themes of feminism, superstition, protection, sexuality, and intimacy. Puglisi arrives at her work by gazing at her matriarchal ancestry and performatively takes part in a long history of seamstresses and lacemakers. Researching underlying stories and histories of an object's strangeness, even objects that we consider common, piques her curiosity.
b. 1988, Brooklyn, NY
Live and works in Northern New Jersey
Education
2016 MFA, Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Boston MA
2011 BFA, Painting & Drawing, William Paterson University, Wayne, NJ
Grants/Awards/Residencies
2021 Collective Futures Fund Grant, Tufts University Art Galleries & is a part of the Regional Regranting Program of the
Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, BOSSCRITT, Boston, MA
2017 Individual Fellowship Award in Sculpture, New Jersey State Council on the Arts (NJSCA), Trenton, NJ
2016 Inside/Out Artist-in-Residence, Big Red & Shiny, Boston, MA
Artist-in-Residence, Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT (Artist’s Grant, August)
2015 Artist-in-Residence, Gallery 263, Cambridge, MA
2014 The Beker Family Scholarship, Massachusetts College of Art & Design, Boston, MA
Graduate Dean’s Scholarship, Massachusetts College of Art & Design, Boston, MA
2011 Artist-in-Residence, Summer Studio Program, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA
Solo Exhibitions
2023 Butterfly Gland, Corugat Loft, San Francisco, CA
Two + Three Person Exhibitions
2024 Storytell-her, Ria x Gallery, Montclair, NJ
2018 CONTRACT/RELEASE, SOIL Gallery, Seattle, WA
2017 Intangible Threads, The Front Space, Rollinsford, NH (curated by Julia Kirchmer)
2015 The Domestic Temple, Gallery 263, Cambridge, MA
Selected Group Exhibitions
2024 Pandora, MassArt x SoWa, Boston, MA
Converge, Bridgette Mayer Gallery, Philadelphia, PA
2022 Delivery Systems, Joseph Gross Gallery, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ
A Long Line, Gallery 263, Cambridge, MA (curated by Erika b Hess)
Well Behaved, Culture Lab LIC, Queens, NY
SOURCE, MassArt x SoWa, Boston, MA
2021 Tiny Things, Wavelength Space, Chattanooga, TN
Flat File, Collar Works, Troy, NY (curated by Kate Mothes)
Women in Abstraction, New Art Center Corridor at the Trio, Newton, MA (curated by Destiny Palmer)
Fertile Ground, William Paterson University Galleries, Wayne, NJ (curated by Kristen Evangelista)
#BOSSCRITTDailyJanuary, Bosscritt, Virtual Exhibition
Flat File, Deanna Evans Projects, Brooklyn, NY
2020 Everyday in August, Bosscritt, Virtual Exhibition
Soft Shoulder, Kathryn Schultz Gallery at Cambridge Art Association, Cambridge, MA (curated by Cathleen Daley)
2019 Geometry, Site: Brooklyn, Brooklyn, NY (curated by Phyllis Tuchman)
2018 New Jersey State Council on the Arts Fellowship Exhibition, Wheaton Arts & Cultural Center, Millville, NJ
MATERIAL, Alfa Gallery, Miami, FL
2017 CL9UD Annual Benefit Auction, Gallery Aferro, Newark, NJ
2016 Accumulating Experience, The Newark Art Council, Newark, NJ (curated by Gallery Aferro & Betty Jarvis)
The Summer GIF Exhibition, Pink Box Collective, Boston, MA
QUICKSAND: The more you struggle, the faster you sink, New Art Center, Newton, MA
MFA Thesis Exhibition, MassART Museum, Boston, MA
That Thing You Said, Arnheim Gallery, Boston MA
Ways to Use Walls, Student Life Gallery, Boston MA
Creative Counterpoints: Women Difference and the Arts, Arnheim Gallery, Boston MA (curated by Marika Preziuso)
27th Annual MassArt Auction, Bakalar and Paine Galleries, Boston, MA
2015 Reclamation: Emerging Female Artists, Nave Gallery, Somerville, MA
Hurry Up & Wait II, Aviary Gallery, Boston, MA
Feelers: The 24TH Drawing Show, Mills Gallery at Boston Center for the Arts, Boston, MA (curated by Susan Metrican)
Hurry Up & Wait, Arnheim Gallery, Boston, MA
All Visual Boston, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA (curated by Trevor Powers & Ricardo DeLima)
Fitted to the Latch, Gallery 263, Cambridge, MA
Bouncing in the Corner, subSamson, Boston, MA
26th Annual MassArt Auction, Bakalar and Paine Galleries, Boston, MA
New Print Horizons, Central Booking Gallery, New York, NY (curated by Stephanie Young)
Affiliations
Co-Director, BOSSCRITT, Boston, MA
Press & Publications
2023 Feature: Diana Jean Puglisi, Canvas Rebel Magazine
2022 Eights Shows to Check out in Boston this Spring, Boston Art Review, Leah Triplett Harrington
2021 May Alumni of the Month Feature, Spotlight Magazine, William Paterson University, Wayne, NJ
2020 Soft Shoulder, Cambridge Art Association: Kathryn Schultz Gallery, Cambridge, MA (catalogue)
2018 NJSCA Fellowship Awards in Visual Arts, New Jersey State Council on the Arts, Trenton, NJ (catalogue)
2016 Studio Visit Magazine, Summer 2016, Boston, MA
ARTiculACTION Art Review, 2016
2015 Diana Jean Puglisi, 365 Artists, 365 Days: a Frank Juarez Gallery & Greymatter Gallery Collaborative Project
Viewpoint: Diana Jean Puglisi, The Drawing Center, April 2015, New York, NY
Related Experience
2017-Present Curator of Education, Youth & Adult Programs, Neuberger Museum of Art, SUNY Purchase College, Purchase, NY
2016-2017 Education & Public Programs Coordinator, Neuberger Museum of Art, SUNY Purchase College, Purchase, NY
2014-2016 President & Founder, MFA Student Alliance, MassART, Boston, MA
Teaching Experience
2018 Visiting Critic, MFA Program, William Paterson University, Wayne, NJ
2017 Adjunct Faculty, Studio Foundations, WIlliam Paterson University, Wayne, NJ
Visiting Critic, MFA Program, William Paterson University, Wayne, NJ
2016 Graduate Teaching Assistant (Roger Tibbetts, Junior/Senior Painting Major Studio), MassART, Boston, MA
Graduate Teaching Assistant (Elizabeth Mooney, Junior/Senior Painting Major Studio), MassART, Boston, MA
Graduate Facilitator (MFA 2D Program), MassART, Boston, MA
2015 Graduate Teaching Assistant (Jane Marshing, Studio Foundations: Sustainability & Art), MassART, Boston, MA
Graduate Teaching Assistant (Amber David Tourlentes, Visual Language), MassART, Boston, MA
Graduate Facilitator (MFA 2D Program), MassART, Boston, MA
Lectures
2021 Gravity: Relationship of Materials to the Wall, Panel Discussion, New Art Center, Newton, MA (virtual)
2020 Annual AAMG Conference, Virtual Affinity Conversations: Moving more educational resources online (virtual)
2017 Alumni Art Panel Discussion, William Paterson University, Wayne, NJ
2016 Assembling Bodies: Exchanges in Collaboration, New England Graduate Media Symposium,
Paramount Center, Boston, MA (selected by Laurie Anderson)
Collections
University Galleries, William Paterson University, Wayne, NJ
Private Collections