Constance Pappalardo was born in Lima, Peru in 1956. She moved to New York City at the age of eight and it was not long before that world of art and culture inspired her. At a very young age she even worked in oils. After high school, Ms. Pappalardo studied painting at The Art Students League with Will Barnett, and subsequently continued her education at The School of Visual Arts, in Manhattan.
In 1976 the artist began a long spiritual journey that took her on a long hiatus away from painting. But a few years ago she returned to her first love and since then has been painting prolifically and with much success. Pappalardo now lives in Cary, North Carolina. Her contemporary abstract watercolors have been featured in numerous galleries in Cary, Raleigh, Chapel Hill, and other cities in North Carolina.
She is member of The Visual Art Exchange in Raleigh and one of the participating artists in the abstract painters group, The ChromaZones.
Ms. Pappalardo is the recipient of various art awards including the Cary Visual Art Purchase Award for “Muses II,” which will now be on permanent display in the Cary Town Hall. Meanwhile, her painting “Portals II” was chosen to grace fund-raising post cards for the Center for Women’s Health Research at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Her works are included in local corporate collections as well as international private collections in England, Norway Germany, Italy and Portugal. Her painting, Purple Mountains was lent to the Embassy of Tajikistan in Dushanbe through the Art in Embassies Program. She was chosen to be the signature artist for Cary’s 2007 Spring Daze Arts and Crafts Festival. She is one of the founders of The Cary Art Loop. Ms. Pappalardo is very involved in many charity art auctions, donating art throughout the years to such charitable events as Works of the HeArt/ action against AIDS, The Red Cross and Habitat for Humanity among others.
Of her work she writes: “I primarily work with watercolor on canvas but my intention is never to follow the traditional path of watercolor. I am always experimenting, using the fluidity of my medium to my advantage. Sometimes I will use printing techniques to achieve patterns, sometimes spraying and rubbing and creating shadows by taking the paint off as quickly as I have applied it. It’s an exciting process because the outcome is always a total surprise and that is what I look for, the happy accident, when the very wet paint has a mind of its own and directs my next step.
Lately I have been fascinated with painting on wood panels. The texture of the wood, the smooth and hard surface ignites my imagination and I find myself thinking differently. I have started using collage and experimenting with transfers on the new wood paintings.
No matter what my medium my theme is always consistent. I want to create a different world, a place of imagination and magic, a wonderland.”
