“I have been photographing artists’ studios for several years in various parts of the world,” said East Hampton artist Daniela Roman. “Lica Roman, my mother was a painter/engraver, and I spent my childhood near her studio. That place, at the back of the garden, was magical for me. I was not allowed inside, except to pose, sitting very still on a chair. But everything attracted me like a magnet.”
Roman has been photographing artist’s studios around the world for the last 11 years. In 2019, she began creating layered portraits of East End artists inside their workspaces.
The Amagansett Free Library is now hosting an ongoing online exhibition by Daniela Roman entitled “Artist’s Studio, A Community.” The ongoing show includes collage-like images or “potpourri” of the studios of Dan Welden, April Gornik, poet Grace Schulman, Francine Fleischer, James Croak, Mary Ellen Bartley and neighboring artists on the East End.
A professional architect and filmmaker, as a young Parisian visiting her uncle Saul Steinberg in Amagansett during the 1970s, Roman became acquainted with Harold Rosenberg, Constantino Nivola, and many other luminaries living and working in Springs. She turned to photography as her chosen metier in 2007, shooting construction sites, the shantytowns of Romani people and always artist’s studios.
“My gaze dives inward at the same time as it is turned towards the world. In a photo I look for composition, matter and emotion,” she said. “For me it goes through the silver technique and the enlarger. This light process allows me to ‘paint’ the photo. I work with traditional photogravure techniques and recently with solar plate printmaking.”
“With my camera, I am now able to freely enter this space that I long considered ‘sacred,’” she added of artists’ studios. “Through photography, I, in turn, create portraits of each of these artists. It is in the studio that their character and personality takes shape and is revealed.”
To view the exhibition, visit amagansettlibrary.org.
Staff Writer on Jul 14, 2020