Dianne Blell

Dianne Blell (born 1943) is a New York–based photographer specializing in mythology and subjective‑reality imagery. She received her BFA and MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute and has been exhibiting her work since the 1970s, earning honors such as the Pollock‑Krasner Foundation Grant and a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship.

Blell’s work explores stories of love, relationships, and intimacy—particularly the compelling forces of yearning, desire, and the romantic pursuit of “ideal” love. Her most recent series, “Desire for the Intimate Deity,” investigates universal stages of courtship through socio‑ethnic and religious mythology drawn from Hindu folklore. In it, Rada and Krishna serve as archetypal figures whose pursuit of divine union mirrors the human condition.

Every element of Blell’s photographic narratives is meticulously produced in the studio: she paints her own sets, designs costumes, stages the action, and then photographs backgrounds and subjects separately on large‑format 4×5 film. These elements are later assembled on her desktop to create richly layered, visually complex compositions. The “Rada and Krishna” project alone has spanned ten years of creation and refinement.