Diane Pribojan
Commissioned by Summa Health
Acrylic on canvas-wrapped panel
- Summer Shadow: 24" x 24", 2022
- Blue Sky II: 24" x 36", 2022
- Brooklyn Colonial: 20" x 20", 2022
- House with Elm: 36" x 24", 2020
Location at Summa Health: Juve Family Behavioral Health Pavilion, second floor, south waiting room
About the Art
Diane Pribojan’s paintings are inspired by Midwestern domestic architecture, with houses that feel both familiar and abstracted, capturing a sense of place while allowing room for interpretation. By simplifying forms, heightening contrasts, and playing with color and shadow, she creates images that are both evocative and meditative. Each painting invites the viewer to look closer, to question what is seen and unseen, and to experience the quiet tension between structure and nature.
In Summer Shadow, Pribojan creates a captivating visual paradox that prompts reflection on the passage of time. While the title suggests the warmth and vibrancy of summer, the imagery tells a more nuanced story. The leafless tree casting its shadow hints at the cooler, more contemplative seasons of late autumn or early spring, a subtle reminder that time is always in transition.
The house, with its blank windows and unadorned side wall, evokes a sense of emptiness, like a memory of summer that has faded into the past. It’s a poignant portrayal of how moments of brightness and warmth can feel distant, even as time moves forward. Just as in healthcare, where we navigate through moments of vitality and challenge, Summer Shadow offers a powerful reminder of the impermanence of all things. The contrast between what we expect from the season and what is depicted in the scene invites us to pause, reflect, and embrace the beauty in life’s quiet transitions.
In every season, whether in nature or in our lives, we find moments of stillness and change, and at Summa Health, we are here to support you through each phase with care, compassion, and understanding.
Blue Sky II invites us into a world of balance and rhythm, where geometry and nature meet in a harmonious, yet mysterious composition. The interplay of overlapping gables and rooflines draws our eyes into a careful rhythm, mirroring the irregular peaks of the two cedar trees that stand alongside. The symmetry between these elements suggests a connection between man-made structure and the organic, untamed beauty of the natural world.
The rich, vivid blue sky that dominates the piece is striking, yet its intensity is not easily defined. It evokes a sense of ambiguity, inviting the viewer to ponder whether this is the bright clarity of midday or the quiet, introspective light of twilight. This uncertainty resonates deeply with the human experience, much like our own journey through life, where moments of clarity often coexist with periods of reflection and transition.
The muted, blind windows of the house add another layer of mystery. They offer no answers, only questions, allowing the viewer to project their own thoughts and feelings onto the scene. This visual openness mirrors the healthcare experience, where we often find ourselves navigating uncertainty, whether through the unknowns of a diagnosis, the quiet moments of waiting, or the ambiguity of what the future may hold.
In Blue Sky II, just as in life and in health, there is beauty in the unknown. It encourages us to reflect, to interpret, and to embrace the spaces between clarity and mystery. At Summa Health, we are here to help guide you through those moments, offering care and support as you navigate your own journey, with compassion and understanding in every step.
In Brooklyn Colonial, Pribojan expertly explores these elements, offering a profound reflection on the way light can transform even the most familiar aspects of life. The composition is anchored by a vibrant green tree, its bright leaves illuminated in stark contrast with the deep shadow it casts. This interplay between light and dark creates a dynamic foundation for the piece, drawing our attention and grounding us in the scene.
Pribojan's use of flattened forms and harmonious color palettes offers a balance between simplicity and depth. The reduced forms invite the viewer to focus on the essence of the composition, on how light and shadow, color and contrast, interact to create a deeper understanding of the world. This balance serves as a reminder that even in the most straightforward moments of our lives, there is a complexity and beauty that can often go unnoticed, waiting to be revealed by a shift in perspective or a change in light.
Much like in healthcare, where small shifts in our care or understanding can lead to profound changes in our well-being, Brooklyn Colonial emphasizes the way light can illuminate hidden details and transform the familiar into something new. At Summa Health, we believe in the power of those moments when a simple shift in approach, perspective, or care can lead to greater understanding and improved health. Just as the light transforms the tree in Pribojan’s piece, we are here to help you navigate and embrace the transformation in your own health journey with compassion and clarity.
Finally, House with Elm shifts the focus to the interplay between structure and nature. The large tree dominates the composition, its crisscrossing branches extending across the sky and house, blurring boundaries. The soft gradient of the red-to-pink sky adds an unexpected vibrancy, while the slight backward lean of the house introduces an almost dreamlike distortion.
Together, these works create a dialogue, drawing attention to the often-overlooked poetry of our surroundings, where homes, trees, light, and shadow all tell quiet yet compelling stories. Pribojan’s art encourages us to pause, reflect, and see familiar places with new eyes.
View of Akron, 2018
Materials & Dimensions: Acrylic on canvas-wrapped panel, 24" x 36"
Location at Summa Health: Akron City Hospital, Ground Floor, Volunteer Services Office
About the Art
Diane Pribojan’s View of Akron offers a striking departure from her more familiar depictions of Midwestern homes, which often feature playful color palettes and fragmented perspectives. Here, she turns her attention to the city’s downtown skyline, reimagining Akron’s high-rises as a carefully composed study in abstraction.
In this work, Pribojan eliminates ground-level elements, focusing instead on a compact arrangement of iconic buildings. While recognizable, the structures are simplified and spatial relationships subtly altered, reinforcing the painting’s abstract qualities. The artist’s deliberate compression of space brings these high-rises into closer proximity than they appear in reality, creating a rhythmic interplay of vertical forms. This composition allows her to explore shifts in color and shadow, as one building casts its presence onto another, adding depth through subtle tonal variations.
Rendered in a restrained palette dominated by shades of blue, accented with touches of purple and muted ochre, the painting captures the essence of these structures rather than a literal depiction. These same hues are repeated in the vertical background stripes, a signature device in Pribojan’s work. Similar to the striped skies found in some of her other pieces, these bands of color reinforce the painting’s abstract nature while enhancing the upward movement of the composition. By deliberately omitting lower, more horizontal buildings, she emphasizes a sense of vertical aspiration as an homage to the architectural ambitions of the 20th century.
Pribojan cites American painter and photographer Charles Sheeler as an influence, but her vision remains uniquely her own. While the real Akron skyline unfolds in a more open, sprawling manner, this work distills and re-presents it in a way that invites the viewer to see it anew, not just as a cityscape but as an interplay of form, color, and structure.
Striped Sky, 2018
Materials & Dimensions: Acrylic on canvas-wrapped panel, 36" x 24"
Location at Summa Health: Dr. Gary B. and Pamela S. Williams Tower, Akron Campus (141 N. Forge St.), Second Floor Hallway outside patient rooms H2-306 and H2-307
About the Art
Diane Pribojan’s Striped Sky captures the playful simplicity of a familiar scene, rendered with vibrant color and a sense of whimsy. The flattened forms in the foreground, with their balloon-like quality, subtly suggest the vitality of plants in a garden, while also inviting the viewer to engage with the scene in a fresh way.
Pribojan, who emigrated from the former Yugoslavia as a child, often builds her paintings around architectural elements she encounters in the Northeast Ohio landscape, particularly private homes. Her fascination with domestic architecture is evident in her ability to simplify complex structures into geometric shapes, as seen here in the simplified house form. The contrast between the two shades of green, representing the front and receding walls, evokes the right angles of the house and underscores the artist’s graphic, abstractionist approach.
Through the abstraction of color and form, Pribojan is able to convey not just the facts of what she observes, but also the moods and feelings these scenes evoke. Her work encourages a new way of seeing the everyday, reminding us to look more closely at our surroundings. In Striped Sky, the repetition of familiar shapes prompts the viewer to reconsider the visual language of the homes and landscapes around us, transforming ordinary scenes into moments of discovery and reflection.
About the Artist
Pribojan earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Cleveland Institute of Art and her Master of Fine Arts from Kent State University. Her work is characterized by a vibrant use of color and dynamic compositions that invite contemplation and evoke an uplifting energy. Her paintings were chosen for the Summa Collection for their ability to inspire a sense of calm and renewal, offering a moment of reflection and positivity for all who encounter them.
Where to See More of This Artist’s Work
Pribojan’s paintings can be explored further on her website, and she is represented by galleries in both Akron and Cleveland, where her work is regularly exhibited.