Artist, designer and fabricator with a background spanning fine art, set design, scenic work and the trades.
Rian Calhoun is an artist, production designer, and fabricator working between conception, design and the physical making of objects and spaces. Raised in Pennsylvania by residential painters, she grew up around the trade and began painting and finishing homes as a teenager. She later worked in the fashion industry in New York and studied painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia before starting her career in visual merchandising. That background eventually led into set design and fabrication in 2017, and since then she has worked across North America in film, music, fashion and commercial production as a production designer, scenic painter, prop maker and fabricator. Her fine art paintings and sculptures have also been exhibited in Los Angeles, Philadelphia, and Montana.
Today, her work brings those backgrounds together—designing, building, painting and finishing physical environments and objects, always being rooted in her traditional, fine art training. Services range from production design, art direction and custom fabrication to scenic painting, specialty finishes, murals and hand-painted signage for productions, events, retail, hospitality and residential spaces. Projects can be handled as individual services or as a full creative process, from concept development and sourcing through fabrication, installation and breakdown. With a background as both an artist and designer, Rian approaches fabrication with an understanding of not only how something needs to be built, but how it should ultimately look, feel and function within a space.