I came to painting as a humanities educator with interests ranging from museums to poetry to sign language. When I paint people, I am a studied realist, but the spaces around them are as varied as the places we call home. Here perception, art history, and interior contemplation interact in intuitive ways. Objects and rooms are metaphors for the darkness and light of our life struggles, while visible textures and imperfections of paint show the unmistakable connection of mind to hand.

I grew up in Texas and now live in Maryland with my husband, portrait photographer Joe Portolano. Together we have six grown daughters — five of them adopted from Ukraine — and an ever-growing, international tribe of grandchildren who sometimes pose for portraits in our home studio.

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Art Education
The Rome Workshops, Rome, Italy (2024, 2026)
Compass Atelier, Kensington, Maryland
Master copyist program, National Gallery of Art, Washin ggton, DC (ongoing)
*I have workshopped with some of the finest figurative artists working today, including Steven Assael, Roberto Osti, Hollis Dunlap, and Zoey Frank

M.A. English literature & Ph.D. Rhetoric (1997), Catholic University of America

Selected Exhibitions & Awards
Upcoming 2027: Solo Show "Learning from Masters/Learning from Life," Bernice Kish Gallery, Columbia, Maryland
2026 6th Biennial Maryland Regional Juried Art Exhibition (BMRE), UMGC Arts Program Gallery, Adelphi, Maryland
2025 National Gallery of Art Master Copyist group show, Nepenthe Gallery, Alexandria, Virginia
2025 Maryland Federation of Art Members Exhibit, Maryland Hall, Annapolis, Maryland
2024 Kensington Paint the Town Plein Air, first place, Kensington, Maryland, Juror: Teresa Oaxaca
2024 Covington Emerging Artist Award, Howard County Maryland, Juror: Robin Holliday

Teaching Background
- Until 2019, I directed the M.A. in Humanities program at Towson University, where I am professor emerita.
- Today I teach drawing & painting out of my home studio and community arts centers.
- I have taught literature at the U.S. Naval Academy and poetry at the Johns Hopkins Osher Institute for Lifelong Learning.
- I have created a full arts & humanities middle-grades homeschool curriculum based on classical education.

Selected Bibliography
Books:
The Passionate Empiricist: John Quincy Adams and the Founding of the Smithsonian (SUNY Press, 2005)
Be Opened! The Catholic Church and Deaf Culture (CUA Press, 2020)
Arts writing:
"The Colors of Eden," Ekstasis Magazine, Fall 2022

Community Service
2025 Portrait life model sessions moderator, Howard County Center for the Arts, Ellicott City, Maryland
2024 Canine Humane Network, pet portrait collaborations, Highland, Maryland

Professional Organizations
Portrait Society of America
Maryland Federation of Art
DC Art Model Collective (artist member)

About me

Lana Portolano is a painter and educator based in the Baltimore/Washington corridor.