Erin Fitzpatrick has been interested in making art for as long as she can remember. “When I was a kid, I would daydream about making books of drawings that catalogued people’s whole houses. It’s kind of weird; I don’t know where that one came from,” she says. “I drew lots of horses and wildcats. In high school, Erin had a teacher who taught her to see and understand relationships between objects and space. “From there my interest took off. Being 14 and drawing a hand that looked like it was coming off the page, I was hooked.”
Erin later went on to earn her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art. “My major was General Fine Arts, which allows for a broad range of study,” she recalls. “I explored everything from portrait drawing to weaving to wood carving and African-American theater. Although I’m primarily a painter now, I only took the two required painting classes when I was in art school. A lot of what I know about painting has come from the practice of making hundreds of oil paintings over the last ten years.”
Erin’s interest in portraiture became heightened in college when she began to notice subcultures. “I worked in a restaurant and at a retail shop in a quirky town with lots of characters, mod scooter kids, people who lived in a tent village, and lots of leftover hippie types,” Erin says. She would sit in the shop and imagine how she would paint each person, although at that time, she was almost exclusively making self-portraits. In 2008, in an effort to overcome a spell of artist’s block, she decided to paint all of her coworkers. “They were a diverse group of interesting people (one is a famous musician now). From there I got asked to do an exhibit. Portraits have been nonstop since then; I’ve probably painted and drawn 600-700 people.”
Erin’s artistic style has evolved over time. “Aside from switching from drawing to painting, my work has become more intentional,” she says. “I’ve gone from focusing on who the model is as an individual, painting them in their own clothes and homes in a found setting, to creating a character with my model. I give them a persona. I build a set and dress the model in wardrobe.” Erin reveals that she’s also become more comfortable with paint. “I’m less uptight with how I apply it to the surface. My marks are less tentative and more juicy.”
Inspired by editorial fashion shoots, interior design, textiles, travels, and formal aspects of design (e.g., shape and color), Erin is currently planning her next series of paintings. “Some of the portraits are inspired by model casting photos, with all my models looking natural and wearing the same black tank top. Others are inspired by a trip that I took to Cuba and the Santeria initiates wearing all white; these paintings are more mysterious,” she says. For the last group of paintings, she’s pulling inspiration from fashion from the 20’s, 70’s and 80’s with headdresses, including turbans, oversized hats, and bath towels. “I’m also looking at a lot of old Hollywood images and symbols of secret societies. I want to create a character who could be high society by day and secret society by night.”
To see more of Erin’s work, visit www.erinfitzpatrickportraits.com.
