Art sold at Farron Elizabeth Boutique and Brecon Estate Winery 

NORTH COUNTY — An eclectic array of books and magazines lie scattered at the artist’s feet—the art of ancient cultures alongside modern fashion magazines. Nine separate canvases are arranged before him, all in various states of completion. A jet-black set of headphones keeps him focused on his work.

Artist Adam Eron Welch put on four live-painting sessions this past week—Wednesday and Thursday at Farron Elizabeth in Atascadero and Friday and Saturday at Brecon Estate in Paso Robles.

Visiting from North Park, San Diego Welch is no stranger to the Central Coast.

“I arrived in Paso for the first time in 2003, did my first wine tasting at Linne Calodo, took one sip of the LC Red & Cherry Red, and suddenly understood that I had found a magical location on Earth,” said Welch. “Tasting my first Paso wines was a transcendental experience.”

In 2018 the artist had his first major solo art exhibition, “Urban Archaic,” in downtown Paso Robles, which sold out in 4 hours. His art now appears on numerous wine labels, album covers, murals, and magazines.

“It was my first time allowing people to watch me work,” Welch explained, “which was terrifying at first because I am generally a very solitary person. When I’m painting, it requires total concentration for the nearly constant decision-making that I have to do… I wanted to do it, though, to involve the viewer in my process and to talk with them about the work. Even Mayor Moreno stopped by to say hello and to watch for a bit. All in all, it was very rewarding and, I think, successful.”

Influenced by Pre-Colombian pre-hispanic mesoamerican art, the sacred art of the Maya, the Aztec, the Zapotec, the art of the Pacific Northwest tribes—the Salish and Kwakiutl tribes of British Colombia and Washington, by art that would be called “primitive” by some.

“I love the rawness of the work,” Welch said, “how honest it can be, how it was sacred to the people who made and used the objects and reflected their understanding of the world around them and their place in it. I want my paintings to be more than just decorations—I want them to be talismans, to be endowed with gravitas, to be painted with heart like the masks from Yoruba and Puget Sound, like the pottery of the Southwestern pueblos, like the sculptures of Zapotecs in Oaxaca. I want to make paintings that are modern and ancient at the same time.”

“All of this now intersects with my new interest—thanks to Farron—in women’s fashion. She sends me magazines when she’s done with them—Vogue, Cosmopolitan, etc., and I paint from the photos. I also use some of your [Patrick Patton] photos as reference material because they are so clean and gorgeous. I want my subjects to not just be pretty but radiating feminine resilience and power, like a diety. I call my subjects ‘diosas.’ I call my style ‘Urban Archaic.'”

“I’ve traveled all over the world,” Welch said, “to over 40 countries on six different continents. I’ve been to Jerusalem, Kathmandu, Istanbul, Rome, Bangkok, Cairo, Bogota…my favorite place on Earth is Paso Robles.”

All of Adam Welch’s new paintings are sold through Farron Elizabeth Boutique and Brecon Estate Winery which are available to browse and purchase at farronelizabeth.com and breconestate.com.