With studios in Rancho Mirage, California & Fargo, North Dakota, Ellen Jean Diederich is a national award-winning painter creating Neo-Impressionistic paintings on canvas and paper in both watercolor and acrylic. Her rural and city backgrounds play a significant role in her choices of subject matters. She particularly enjoys painting landscape, flowers, architecture, and domesticated animals. Proud of her Midwest heritage, Diederich brings sincerity and love to each painting. Having earned a Bachelor of Arts in Art Education and a Bachelor of Fine Arts, Diederich is an honored alumnus of Minnesota State University-Moorhead. She has been painting professionally since 1985. She has exhibited widely and was featured in Fargo at the Plains Art Museum and the Underbrush Gallery, The Rourke Art Museum in Moorhead, The Capital Gallery in Bismarck, and Jean Stephen Galleries in Minneapolis and many more in the Dakotas and Minnesota. Diederich is also the author and illustrator of two award winning children’s books and one art book “Progressive painting -Your Creative Journey” as well as a workshop instructor and juror. "Painting in North Dakota has encouraged me to explore the beauty of light on a flat plane. This experience helps me enhance what I see in my other favorite subject matters: flowers, architecture and domesticated animals. In the design phase I focus on shapes in space, using light and contrast to add depth as they move through the picture plane. After drawing out my subject carefully, I select a dominant color theme and begin painting. My paintings are very active and it is exciting to edit them towards their specific goal." In 2024, Minnesota State University of Moorhead named its gallery the Diederich Art Gallery in honor of her life's work.