about the artist, about the work

Constance LaPalombara is a painter of landscape, still life and interiors, who works from direct observation. Her interest in landscape developed during several extended trips to Italy, where she painted mainly around Rome and in Umbria. She now focuses on the urban scene, and the landscape of coastal Maine, where she summers. Time spent in Italy also provided her with the opportunity to study Italian painting, an important influence on her development as a painter.

The use of light is perhaps the most essential ingredient in her work. In this regard, Andrew Forge, in is essay "The Clarity of American Light" writes that, "Her work . . . places her firmly and honorably in the American luminist tradition that discovers elements of the sublime not in grandeur and theatricality but in the intense and penetrating observation of a certain quality of light."

This observation is echoed by Rosanna Warren who, in commenting on LaPalombara's cityscapes, writes: "LaPalombara keeps her promises with light. . . . into their haunted empty spaces, the spirit is invited. . . . Entering, we find we are keeping meditative promises we did not even know we had made."

And Norma Thompson, writing in the catalogue of LaPalombara's 2008 exhibition at Yale's Whitney Humanities Center, describes her as a "poet-artist of place," adding that, "Underneath the reality LaPalombara depicts, another and altogether different metaphysical reality lies concealed."

Other reviews of her work typically call attention to their ethereal and metaphysical qualities.