Bio / Diane Bush

Diane Bush was born in Buffalo, N.Y., 1950. At the age of 18, she emigrated to the U.K. with a draft dodger, in response to the Vietnam War. After living there for ten years and working as a documentary photographer, she returned to the U.S. to attend to her ailing parents. Once back in Buffalo, N.Y. she obtained her Master's Degree in Photography from the State University of New York by documenting local boxing gyms and billiard halls.

After graduating, she spent seven years as staff photographer at local PBS and ABC-TV stations, while at the same time pursued self-imposed artistic projects and established a public arts organization.

Following her commercial photographic career, Diane returned to academia by spending six years as the Coordinator of the Photography Department at a local two-year college. While her students were winning numerous national awards and prizes, Diane was doing the same with her own professional and artistic work, through the generosity of such companies and organizations such as Kodak, Polaroid, Nikon, Ilford, the Royal Photographic Society, Friends of Photography (San Franscico), The Albright -Knox Art Gallery, and the United Nations.

Throughout her professional career, Diane has continued to exhibit her work in approximately five group shows per year, and has been both exhibited and published locally, nationally, and internationally, including shows in Japan, China, Great Britain, Germany and France. Since her relocation to Las Vegas in 1997, she has been awarded five grants and a Fellowship from the Nevada Arts Council, has been exhibited in 40 local group shows, 12 national group shows, and had a one-person show at the Nevada Institute of Contemporary Art, and Le Peep Gallery, in Las Vegas. She continues to teach an occasional photographic workshop and works on several committees within the Contemporary Arts Collective.

Currently she works as the Cultural Supervisor for Clark County Parks and Community Services' Cultural Affairs Division and presides over the Winchester Cultural Center where she supervises cultural programs while promoting literacy through art education. She is also a past President of the Contemporary Arts Collective of Las Vegas and collects everything vintage.