INTERVIEW: Artist Jamie Diamond Talks Creative Process, Mediums, and Technology

Jamie Diamond is a performance artist, photographer, and filmmaker living and working in New York. Her work has been featured in exhibitions all over the world. She is the latest artist featured in Almond’s Artists and Writers Dinner Series, which explores the connection between art and dining.

“Jamie’s work sometimes blurs the line between the real and the contrived. You often see us doing something similar with the food at the restaurant. Stretching the definition of ‘authentic,'” shared Almond Chef/co-owner Jason Weiner.

Jamie Diamond spoke to Hamptons.com about her creative process, mediums, and technology.

Your work explores the evolving nature of human connection and intimacy. What initially sparked your interest in these themes, and how have they evolved throughout your career?

Both of these themes have been at the core of my work from the very beginning. I am interested in our desire for real and imagined intimacy. In my work, I try to find moments or subjects that engage with the space between the authentic and the constructed.

In many ways, it began with my childhood family portrait. Somehow the image it portrayed didn’t seem right; that behind all the static smiles and handholding hid a little secret. My mother’s gaze off stage, my brother’s collapsing smile – some separate unspeakable narrative was being played out behind the scenes that we were all doing our best to ignore. Family portraits are indiscriminate things, determined to present to the viewing public a vision of unity and happiness, regardless of the reality. As viewers we know just what to expect, and as subjects we understand instinctively how to perform, but despite all our well-rehearsed play-acting, the cracks appear, exposing the shaky carcass beneath the well-worn polished veneer.

In my earliest photographic series, The Constructed Family Portraits, I attempt to destabilize the framework and highlight the inherent performative and fictional nature of this photographic genre. I began by recruiting strangers to play each familial role. I initially posted online ads looking for ordinary people. Once complete, I would invite the subjects to a hotel room, at a specific date and time, and pose them together as a family for the camera. They would instinctively adopt the requisite gestures and poses typical of family portraits. The final images were extremely convincing, asserting conventional values of domestic unity and intimacy. Through their performance, coordinated attire, and proximity to one another, the connections began to forge.

With a background in performance art, photography, and filmmaking, how do you navigate the intersections between these mediums in your creative process?

For the last 15 years, I’ve been working predominantly in Photography though at times the final work will take the form of video and or sculpture. I never know exactly what the outcome will be when starting a project, but the process and research is fundamental and I try to not get caught up on the output until I am ready. I see myself more as a multidisciplinary artist, and I firmly believe that the concept/idea comes first and that the execution/ medium comes after, each project warrants something different.

Looking ahead, what themes or concepts are you eager to explore in your future projects?

For the last few years, I have been investigating the profound impact of touch and connection. Touch is an essential human need and is embedded in the social structure of our lives, it affirms our relationships and our emotional and social behaviors. Research on touch shows that it releases endorphins and oxytocin which helps reduce pain and stress, enables better sleep; and increases overall well-being. The loss of social touch has been a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic but even before the pandemic, many people were deprived of touch often without realizing it. Overall we are having fewer interactions and connections, there are major social changes due to the increasing digitization of our interactions, through automation, technology, and social media.

I think my future projects will be expanding on these concepts while also looking deeper into the impact of Artificial Intelligence and the complex relationships between humans and machines, being and non-being.

In what ways do you believe art can foster dialogue and connection in today’s society, particularly in the midst of social and cultural challenges?

I believe strongly that art has the power to prompt dialogue & connection and has the ability to make a profound impact on society, personally and collectively. We are at a fascinating cultural juncture and we are confronted by serious questions regarding intimacy and human connection. I hope for my work to be a reflection of where human relationships are now, and an indication of what is yet to come. I’m interested in meaningful human connection, the value of touch, in the effect of its absence, and in the changing social and moral viewpoints surrounding its application.

How do you approach the use of technology and digital media in your artistic practice, and what role do you see them playing in the future of art?

When I began graduate school in 2006, photography was in a profound state of flux, with the shift from analog to digital. Images began to dominate our reality, with the emergence of the smartphone and image driven social media. The continual re-definition of the medium, and the elastic nature of its boundaries, was very interesting for me. It was at this point that I began to transition from sculpture to image making. I continue to be inspired by technology’s role in complicating art and its future.