Press
Artforum
Artforum: “Alex Jovanovich on Jamie Diaz”
Dignity is perhaps the most appreciable and astonishing quality emanating from Jamie Diaz’s artwork.
People Magazine: “Trans Artist Jamie Diaz Spent Nearly 30 Years Incarcerated in Men’s Prison. How Her Story Inspired New Doc”
“I look at a lot of artwork and I talk to a lot of different artists,” says Cooney. "My question are often, 'How authentic is this? How true is this to the person? How honest is it about the person that it's coming from?' When I saw Jamie's work, it was all of those things, really...you can really feel who Jamie is by looking at her work.”
Them: Beloved trans painter Jamie Diaz is finally free. Her story is only beginning.
Looking at Diaz’s wild, effusive, sometimes carnal pieces, you’d hardly think she produced most of her life’s work while incarcerated.
Hyperallergic: Trans Artist on Parole After 30 Years in Men’s Prison
Diaz focused on delicately rendered, surreal figuration exemplifying queer love and beauty and sequential images that navigated themes of pain and suffering.
Xtra
Xtra: “Jamie Diaz, in prison for almost 30 years and an artist almost 50, at last publishes her first comic book”
This otherworldly, ethereal quality that Diaz combines with the bodily (and the bawdy) has resonated with viewers.
Them
Them: “Painter Jamie Diaz In Her Own Words”
The air of liberation expressed through her paintings is unmistakable, leaping forth through colorful portraits of trans subjects dancing, strutting, loving each other out loud.
Pace Press
The Pace Press: “Incarcerated trans artist makes debut in solo exhibition, ‘Even Flowers Bleed’”
Jamie Diaz’s stunning collection of watercolor paintings explore the complexities of queerness and the strength of the human spirit.
Them
Them: “The Transcendent Optimism of Painter Jamie Diaz”
The sense of liberation Diaz feels living openly in her womanhood is palpable in her paintings.
NBC OUT
NBC OUT: “This trans artist has been creating art from behind bars for nearly three decades”
She is the embodiment of trans and queer joy and resistance.
The T List
The T List: “A Debut Exhibition of Joyful Queer Art”
In her pieces, opposites not only attract but work in concert and collaboration.
KQED
KQED: “Oakland's A.B.O. Comix Publishes, Advocates for LGBTQ Prisoners”
Jamie Diaz stylishly deflects pejoratives for trans women while her swooshing coif provokes the ire of prison officials.