Diana Roque Ellis was born in San Francisco. As a toddler, she started drawing before she could speak and drew ducks, and other images on anything she could. She had already decided she was to be an artist when she grew up. In Kindergarten, Diana’s teacher recognized the child’s talent and directed Diana’s mother to expose her to the arts by taking her to museums, galleries, symphonies and opera performances. At the 14, uninterested in usual teenage activities, Diana began to work in oils. Meanwhile, Soviet artist, Gareneh Azizian, had defected to the US and set up an Atelier in San Francisco. Azizian happened upon Diana’s fledging work and immediately requested that the young artist study under her. Diana trained under Azizian while attending Mercy High School. This was a fertile time for the teen as she was encouraged by the school to create art for the hallways. Diana painted three large scale allegorical works during this period.

Seeking a Fine Arts degree, Diana entered San Francisco State University. Soon however, Diana came to realize that she was expected to adhere to the constraints of Abstract Impressionism. She was told that her work was “irrelevant.” Frustrated, yet desiring to complete her course requirements, she took to submitting assignments upside down. Diana also showed her works to various local San Francisco galleries and was similarly rebuffed.
Ultimately, these experiences diminished Diana’s life long interest in becoming an artist. She had no inspiration or desire to paint in the styles of her era.

Shortly after her education, Diana was soon married to the first of three husbands, producing a son. Diana had one solo exhibit at Cricket’s Gallery Chicago which had almost been cancelled due to a record breaking snow storm. Ultimately, Diana became known as a socialite in Chicago and Beverly Hills where she resisted requests to paint portraits of people she didn’t know, finding that work to be dull and uninspiring. In 1996 Diana started a new series of works creating life size pieces of her romantic partners. In them, she inserted riddles, Latin words and mysterious juxtapositions of totemic symbols. In 2013 while seated at at an ‘el fresco” dinner party, a charcoal portion of a log rolled out of the fireplace. On a lark Diana started sketching an imaginary figure on the cement ground. Diana’s son then suggested that she commence a series of street art images, which she did for a period of 3 summer months that year.

Currently, Diana has rededicated herself to her art and is working on an entirely new series of large scale allegorical pieces involving mixed media in her Beverly Hills studio.