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| Richard Streitmatter-Tran, watercolor painting on silk |
“When people come, I want them to see something happening,
not just a finished work,” he explains.
“I want visitors to see a working studio, a work in progress.” Piles of
books on New England art – from impressionist painters to photographers – cover
other tables, where he browses them for inspiration. It’s very easy to become caught up in his
enthusiasm for these projects – it’s as if everything he sees sparks a new
idea.
Born in Vietnam, Richard came to America when he was adopted
at 8 months old. He grew up on Cape Cod
in what he calls a “working class New England family.”
“Cape Cod is a time capsule,” he says, “where they still
have soda fountains and AM/FM radios.” He
spent his formative years surrounded by the artwork of New England greats,
including Winslow Homer and Edward Hopper.
“I’m very fond of Edward Hopper, his paintings of Cape Ann. There’s places I grew up that still look like
that.”
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| Sketches for future portraits |
Richard attended the Studio for Interrelated Media (SIM) at
Mass College of Art, where he studied new media, performance, and immaterial
work. “I had a strong conceptual basis,
but I couldn’t draw a stick figure,” he laughs.
At first, this wasn’t a problem – the ideas he developed could be
manufactured in other ways – “but it didn’t feel like it was really expressive
of my own self.”
After graduating, he taught art, and was soon asked to
develop a drawing course. With no
practical experience, he taught himself to draw, starting with the basics. “It was slow, but there was pleasure in the
incremental improvement,” he says. “I
started doing more work with my hands.
Sculpture comes naturally to me, painting and drawing is still more of a
struggle.”
In 2003, he moved to Vietnam, where he has built most of his
artistic practice. As a working artist,
he has presented in Asia and Europe, but never before in America. “Part of this residency is coming back home,”
he says, jokingly referring to himself as “the prodigal son.”
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| Richard's diptych, "Inconsolable" and "Crushed," acrylic on muslin, will be on display at the Worcester Pop-Up Exhibition |
“Lately I’ve been working with watercolor on metal and
silk. I thought it would be pleasant to
come visit the New England greats, try to reconcile their techniques with my
work now.” He quickly learned that the
thick watercolors of Homer and John Singer Sargent didn’t work on silk – “if
you load it up, it drips through” – but he nevertheless tries new ideas every
day.
One thing he hopes to emulate is the timeless nature of
Hopper’s paintings, creating something that in fifty years will still feel
distinctly Worcester. “I’m not sure how
I’ll accomplish that yet. I don’t want
to be too obvious.”
He also has two projects inspired by a recent trip to a
Thailand studio: a sketch of a sarong, currently being developed into a large
diptych partly inspired by the depiction of clothing and form in John Singer
Sargent’s portraits of the elites; and the enormous marionette arm, a scaled up
version of one from Thailand, which he is carving from pieces of an old fence by
his family home, which was torn down in a recent storm. “I love the grey of the pine when it’s been
exposed to the salt air,” he says. “It’s
a very Cape Cod look.”
You can see Richard Streitmatter-Tran's work at any of the following events:
- Tropical/Temerate Exhibition @ the Worcester Pop-Up (20 Franklin Street); Wednesday, September 11, 6-9 PM
- Saturday Open Studio (Worcester Art Museum); Saturday, September 14, 12-2 PM
- StART on the Street (Park Avenue); Sunday, September 15
- Third Thursday Artist Talk (Worcester Art Museum); Thursday, September 19, 6-8 PM
-- Sarah Leveille
Digital Content Specialist
September 3, 2019