Paul Pascarella’s journey toward the Rockies is a key to his artistic evolution.
He began in New York, graduating from Parsons School of Design and exhibiting
his work at the Museum of Contemporary Crafts and the Nikon Gallery.
Freelancing as a graphic designer in New York and Aspen, where he had his
first solo show in 1974, he eventually moved to Los Angeles, working in print
media and feature films. His graphic work is in the contemporary collection of the
Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

Using pulverized media such as pigments, charcoal and pastels, he painted creatures
from the mythology and nature of the American West, silent and formidable witnesses
to a pre-industrialized era. As a result of these works he was introduced to the
Native American Lakota rituals, which became the existential catalysts that led
Pascarella to leave Los Angeles and to concentrate exclusively on his art.

The landscape of northern New Mexico, where he has lived since the 1980s, further
influenced his subject matter, leading to a series of works – the Dynamics of Nature,
Full Moon, Potential Images, and Kimono paintings – in which natural phenomena
are boldly abstracted yet expressed within rigorous outlines, be it the shape of a
Japanese kimono robe or a calendar year of full moon days.

In 2005, days after the tragic death of Hunter Thompson, a friend and pivotal figure in
his life, he completed a five-foot portrait of Thompson and a video of the making of the
portrait that brought a new and unsuspected freedom to his work. Often working on
a large scale and sometimes anchoring paintings to panels of textured gold,
Pascarella continues to use an unorthodox variety of media and tools to reach the
textural complexity of vigorous abstraction where motions and patterns become
figurative hints harking back to the healing powers of Nature.

Pascarella’s work has been exhibited in galleries in Los Angeles, New York,
San Francisco, Aspen, Santa Fe, and Taos. His work is in private and public
collections including the Harwood Museum in Taos, the Hammond Museum in
New York, and the Headley Whitney Museum in Lexington, Kentucky.