Studio Without Walls

American Style Magazine | Issue 48

By Charlotte Richardson – AMERICAN STYLE MAGAZINE | Issue 48 | February 2006

It’s a comfortable spring day in Tallahassee, not yet Florida’s steamy “velvet glove” weather. It also seems like the perfect climate for Paul Tamanian’s semi-enclosed studio—until the artist dons his impermeable-fiber jumpsuit, attaches a respirator, lowers his goggles, pops on heavy-duty earplugs, and warms up his air compressor. As he energetically orchestrates myriad treatments to the surface of his latest aluminum work, Tamanian is soon sweltering.

A brilliantly colored 8-foot tusk form stands among other recent work in the garden between Tamanian’s house and studio. It’s a commission awaiting a seaside installation. The tusk shape is a new direction for his work, which includes vessels, sculpture and paintings.

Tamanian’s complex surface patterns fascinate viewers. “The first appeal is tactile. People want to stroke the pieces, to analyze surfaces by hand,” says Peg Goldberg Longstreth of Longstreth-Goldberg Art in Naples, Fla. “His work is emotionally and intellectually accessible, but it appeals most to very sophisticated people, critics and serious collectors.”