Deanna Dikeman

(American, b. 1956)

Toasting Marshmallows #2, 9/96

Sometimes our vision is too perfect to see the spirit of what is in our everyday sight.

Deanna Dikeman’s pictures emphasize the phrase “meaning is found in the unremarkable.” The pictures from her Relative Moments series depict lyrical, abstract domestic images and nostalgic, touching scenes of suburban home life. Dikeman uses her camera to scrutinize and commemorate the everyday moments and gestures of her parents (and occasionally others) within their Midwestern home. In this series, small, quiet moments take on new meaning. Rendered with a traditional documentary style, her pictures suggest life slowing down and everyday routine becoming a reminder of our own mortality.

Dikeman received a BS and an MS from Purdue University. She is currently an instructor at the University of Missouri and has worked as a freelance photographer since 1986. Her work is held in the collections of the Aaron Siskind Foundation, Princeton University; American Century Corporation; and the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson. Dikeman has shown her work at San Francisco Camerawork; the Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, MD; and the Society for Contemporary Photography Gallery, Kansas City, MO, among others. Dikeman currently lives and works in Columbia, MO.

Elisabeth Kirsch. Anything goes in the retro ‘Home’. Kansas City Star, April 8, 2001.

Richard Howard Mundane Mysteries: Missouri Photographer Deanna Dikeman. Art Papers Magazine. volume 25, no.5 (Atlanta: October 2001), p.12.

Robin Trafton. Where the Sublime Meets the Everyday. Kansas City Star, January 25, 2002.