Diane Neumaier

Diane Neumaier is an American photographer, curator, writer and feminist scholar who works extensively in Eastern Europe and Russia.

During the 1970s, photography became an important tool of documentation and self-expression for feminist artists. Through photography Neumaier explores her personal family history, the streets of Moscow and the satire of mainstream cultural politics. She strives to increase the visibility and international relations between feminist photographers, theorists and artists. Lately she has moved away from gritty black and white photographs to work on abstract colour photograms.

Toccata is an abstract colour photogram that is an image produced without a camera and created by placing objects directly onto photographic paper which is then exposed to light. This innovative technique has been around since the dawn of photography but gained popularity in the 1920s. Inside Neumaier’s photograms colourful shapes often resemble origami objects as she plays with distortion and dimensionality.