Epiphany Art
Diana Durantel
Diana Durantel is a self-taught, London-based painter whose luminous canvases — inspired by St John's Gospel and the movement of the Holy Spirit — are, in her own words, fountains of light and colour.
Mediums: Acrylic · Oil
Themes: Light · Holy Spirit · Creation · The Eucharist
Location: London, UK
Available for church and private commissions
About Diana
Diana Durantel is a self-taught painter who has been working in acrylic and oil for twenty-five years. Based in London, she has developed a distinctive visual language — luminous, textured and deeply rooted in her faith — that draws on contemplative prayer and the theology of light in the Gospel of John.
Three themes run through all her work: Light, Creation and the Holy Spirit. She describes her canvases as fountains of light and colour, intended to bring joy and to open a window onto the beauty and love of God.
In their own words
"I create my paintings to be fountains of light and colour. They are to bring joy to anyone who looks at them — in the same way that stained glass panels translate natural light into a festival of colour and brilliance.
"Painting is my way of expressing my thirst for God and reflecting his love through beauty. The movement, the texture and the bloom of colour are inspired by contemplation, expressing the emotion and inner life that comes from the depth of my heart.
"My themes are Light — I am deeply touched by the words of St John in his prologue: "The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it" (John 1:5); Creation — the beauty and the dance of colours in the changing seasons; and the Holy Spirit — a fire of love dwelling in our hearts.
"I would like my paintings to be a window revealing the joy, the hope and the life flowing from the colourful creation, reflecting the beauty and the love of the creator."
Faith and the creative act
Diana Durantel sees painting as a way of spreading the Gospel through beauty. Her central scriptural anchor is John 1:5 — "The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it" — a verse she returns to as both subject and aspiration.
In paint, she wants to communicate something certain: that God has victory over darkness, and that hope is real. The Holy Spirit — experienced as a fire of love dwelling in the human heart — is another constant presence in her work, expressed through movement, texture and the bloom of saturated colour.
Selected works
