Stephanie Rado Taormina
AQ is our series of hardcover catalogs celebrating extraordinary women artists. Available on Amazon. Visit the AQ Catalog Webpage to learn more.
AQ Volume IV artist Stephanie Rado Taormina is an abstract painter from New York City and Wyomissing, PA. Stephanie's art background is self-taught over her lifetime, and she holds a BA in Communication from Penn State University and a design degree from Parsons.
She is interested in working through themes of what it means to be present in our own lives and communicating visually the messages that resonate within her in order to understand our experience as humans in a world that can rely too heavily on outside accolades and materialism.
Among her main influences are artists such as de Kooning, Cy Twombly, Joan Mitchell, and Tracy Emin for their mastery of creating intense visceral work that cuts straight to the psyche and how we feel in our bodies when we experience such powerful work fueled by deep emotion.
Rado Taormina has exhibited at Van Der Plasse Gallery, the High Line Nine Gallery in New York, The Cohen Gallery at The Goggleworks Center for the Arts in Reading, PA, and will have her first solo show at the Yocum Gallery in PA in March 2025.
Stephanie's art has been featured in Spring Studios, New York, where she created a charity platform called The Elsie Project. In collaboration with her fashion brand "Have Some Fun Today," Rado Taormina used handbags from the collection as a canvas to create wearable works of art that were auctioned off to raise awareness for mental health.
Stephanie works out of her home studio in Wyomissing, PA.
https://stephanieradotaormina.com
What inspired you to become an artist, and how did you decide to commit to this path?
My inspiration to become an artist now, after a full life and career as a designer, founder & entrepreneur, is from the self-work I have been committed to over the past 20 years. I am an artist, but I haven’t always chosen to walk the path of a visual artist because it's something I have always been. Now I am seeing that I want to leave something more behind, and nothing gives me more joy and satisfaction than when I am creating in this way.
Could you share the story or concept behind your recent work?
The concept behind my recent work is also part of the self-work that I do. In the beginning of 2024, I took three weeks to step out of my work routine with my brand to take a deep dive into my life purpose and how I want to experience life going forward. In the talks I had with my partner & mentor, I tried to weed out the experiences I no longer wanted to have and see how to make space for the things that bring me the most joy & satisfaction. Then I had a vision about how magic manifests in our life. From there, I wanted to explore the notion of "Magic"—what does that look like, what does that feel like—and then I set about to express these ideas in my art.
What was the most challenging part of your path so far? How are you navigating this obstacle?
I think it is trying to be a serious artist when you didn’t come up through the expected channels, such as getting an MFA, or solely only trying to be an artist, and also being older than the average person who is trying to be taken seriously as an artist. I feel there are a lot of obstacles stacked against me, but I am doing what I can to stay in the headspace that I just need to be open to learning and making work that is committed to exploration, curiosity, putting myself out there, and staying consistent with my practice.
What role does experimentation and exploration play in your artistic practice?
Experimentation & exploration are paramount to what I am making these days. As a lifelong, mostly self-trained artist, there is so much that I didn’t learn from school, and when I see something that looks interesting to me, or I’m wondering about how they did that or what it would be like for me to do it, I go in and see how to navigate my voice with a new technique. (And it's fun!)
Do you have any start or stop rituals before creating?
Before I start, I like to make sure my studio is organized & prepared. I like to create a mood with the right energy in terms of the surroundings, like having the right music on, the temp in the room, and maybe a cup of tea. Then I get into it, and when I am done for the day, I again like to clean my space well, wash my brushes, organize my tools, and honor the space.
What message do you hope your art conveys to the world?
I am hopeful that my art brings people joy, warmth, inspiration & strength. I feel, and am told, that my work has a real energy. It can be soothing, it can be peaceful, inviting, meditative, lively, etc. I hope that however people experience my work, they stop and notice it, and it makes them feel good whether they understand art or not. It’s universal.
Share a mantra or favorite quote that keeps you going.
"Love is just around the corner, It's the thing that keeps us going." I just made a painting for that quote. It was a statement an art professor made in an art class I took at Penn State, and in 30 years, I have never forgotten it. Now it is immortalized in a work called "Lessons."
