BIO
Erin Palazzolo (b. Tarrytown, NY 1979) began her artistic training as a child with ten edifying years of studio instruction under printmaker Myril Adler. After graduating valedictorian of Briarcliff High School, NY (1997), she studied at Williams College, MA and Syracuse University School of Art and Design in Florence, Italy (1999). Graduating Phi Beta Kappa, magna cum laude with a B.A. in English and Honors Thesis in Studio Art from Williams College (2001), she worked as a non-profit program analyst before pursuing an M.S. in Art Therapy from the College of New Rochelle, NY (2005). Erin trained and worked in psychiatric hospital and skilled nursing home settings, earning her ATR (Registered Art Therapist) credential from the Art Therapy Credentials Board (2008). Upon marrying Joseph Loparo and moving to Boston, she moved into art education as Chair of the Art Department for Mount Alvernia High School in Newton, MA (2007-2010). For ten years, Erin worked as a stay-at-home mother of three in volunteer leadership capacities for Brookline area schools and St. Mary of the Assumption Church in Brookline, MA. As of 2021, Erin began accepting commission-based art projects. She is currently carrying out a 2021-23 Visual Arts Grant for Brookline Early Education Program and works as an art therapist for the New Art Center in Newton, MA. She is a member of the American Art Therapy Association and Cambridge Art Association.
Erin has shown her artwork in exhibitions in NY and the Boston area and has work on permanent exhibit at Harvard Medical School. She accepts commissions.
STATEMENT
In creating original artworks for exhibition or commission, I enjoy a physical and visceral art process. I often employ mixed-media including acrylic, gouache, ink, graphite, pastel, monoprint collage, etching, on heavyweight Arches cold-press watercolor paper, gessobord or claybord (at various scales). Movement, rhythm, light and texture are crucial elements of my aesthetic. With roots in abstract expressionism and mandala practice, my spontaneous mark-making is dialectical - it aims to move viewers into a reflective interior space that is both conversational and cathartic. Commission-based collaborations add dimensions of research, compositional planning and synthesis which invigorate my process. Joan Mitchell, Jackson Pollock, Agnes Martin and William Turner serve as early artistic influences while Shunryu Suzuki and Fr. Jean Pierre de Caussade's writings have been influential.
As an artist mother creating portraits of her children, I relish capturing fleeting, intimate moments in time especially in the fragile space of rest. Often utilizing pastels, graphite or charcoal in the course of one or more sittings, I behold my subject and bask in what I see and feel. Mary Cassatt's pastel linework and gestures of embrace inspire as well as an early love of surrealism.