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Every time I interview an artist I ask to do it in his studio because I think it is fundamental to see the living space in which the artist organizes his time and materials, giving shape to his works.
The Portrait Society of America organized the pre-convention class, yesterday and today, exactly with this approach: offering to the public the opportunity to enter in the art studios in a sort of fascinating behind-the-scenes setting while waiting for the official opening of the XXII de The Portrait Society of America. It has done it with a completely new dress, the virtual one that in the lack -large- of physical contact has the benefit of bringing the convention in the homes of anyone interested without the need to move.
The first day of pre-convention saw Quang Ho and Adrienne Stein as protagonists. Artists who in addition to having a love of art in common share life in the enchanting limestone house dating back to 1764 and purchased by the couple in 2017 in Hellam, Pennsylvania, where Adrienne grew up. The two share a passion for botany as well as for art and the garden of the house lends itself without a shadow of a doubt in this regard. Yet despite everything, the two artists have two separate studios, one adjacent to the other: so similar for the use of particular woods, perhaps cut out from the dense vegetation of their garden, especially for Quang Ho who proves to be a great connoisseur of wood.
Adrienne Stein has a very tidy studio where it is possible to carve out different spaces for a chat with friends, she has a rich collection of animal bones and other memorabilia collected during her travels. Her workstation is in the middle of the room and is designed not to leave anything to chance. From the large, immense windows built specially enters a lot of light that is reflected on the back wall of a greenish color: a shade that she particularly appreciated from a trip to Italy. Hanging on the walls or in the tidy closet there are her works that recall figures from other times rich in folklore, mysticism and natural elements in which familiar faces and friends appear.
But above all in her studio there is a portrait of her that she is very fond of: the portrait that made Quang Ho after meeting her at a convention of the Portrait Society of America in 2015. Adrienne Stein received her MFA from Boston University and a BFA Magna Cum Laude from Laguna College of Art & Design; she also studied with teachers in the United States, France and Italy and her works are exhibited both nationally and internationally, as are the works of Quang Ho.
Quang Ho’s space is architecturally designed in the same way: on two floors and with huge windows. Here and there are often antique pieces and wood, lots of wood of many different types that works in the carpentry area on the ground floor, while his art studio is upstairs, where between a canvas hanging from the ceiling and another with which he has promised to create something, a giant easel appears hanging on the wall, designed by the artist and can be tipped or lowered using an electrical device designed and installed specifically for large works but not only.
Among his works many small portraits and many flowers, probably the same flowers of their garden that beautifully frame the estate. Quang Ho is originally from Saigon and moved at the age of 11 with his family to Colorado where he later obtained a scholarship to the Colorado Institute of Art where, thanks to the teachings of the strict Rene Bruhin, he learned to express feeling rather than technique, which is achieved through intuition rather than through academic education alone.
At Bruhin also recognizes the merit of having learned to see shapes compared to real images. He works mainly with oils, watercolors and pastels, ranging from still life, landscapes and interiors to dancers and figures. but he is not bound to any particular way of expression because a single painting can be a study of color, another a formal arrangement and yet another an exploration of texture and surface.
(on the title: Adrienne Stein and Quang Ho)
