Bio
Born in 1982 in Germany, Barbara Diener is a lens-based artist currently living and working in Cork City, Ireland. She received her Bachelor of Fine Art in Photography from the California College of the Arts and Masters of Fine Art in Photography from Columbia College Chicago.
Her work has been exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, Chicago, Griffin Museum of Photography, Winchester, MA, Alibi Fine Art, Chicago, David Weinberg Gallery, Chicago, New Mexico Museum of Art, Santa Fe, NM, Invisible Dog Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, Pingyao Photo Festival, China, Philadelphia Photo Arts Center, and Project Basho, Philadelphia among others.
Diener’s photographs are part of numerous private and institutional collections and she has participated in several competitive artist residency programmes including the Fields Project in Oregon, IL, ACRE in Steuben, WI, and HATCH Projects through the Chicago Artist Coalition. Diener was awarded the Albert P. Weisman Award in 2012 and 2013. In 2015, 2018, and 2020 she received an Individual Artist Grant from the Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and Events.
Daylight Books published Diener's first monograph of her body of work Phantom Power in June 2018 and her project The Rocket's Red Glare was published by Fw: Books in 2023. Diener was recently awarded the highly selective Sample-Studios Spike Island Residency, presented in partnership with Sirius Arts Centre and Spike Island and has received an Arts Council Visual Arts Bursary Award in 2025.