My paintings start with photographs. The idea of loss, illusion and memory and how it is shaped and recorded by photography is the basis for my work. I interpret the setting and the era by studying old family photographs. Through a process of scraping and deleting, resulting images become distorted. I like to think I grasp the essence of the character either by physical stance, color or psychological analysis, but in reality, I have added personal references to these distant relatives in the hope of connecting to my past.


Pam Fingado was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area where she continues to live and work today. Raised by parents who had both attended the San Francisco Art Institute, she developed an interest in art at an early age. By the age of ten, she had already won her first award in art.

Pam began as an abstract artist concentrating on collage and works on or of paper. Later, while studying at the California College of Arts and Crafts in the early 1980s, she began to focus on graphics arts and silk screen, and in 1984 she earned an art degree in printmaking from California State University at Hayward. Today, her work incorporates both abstract and graphic qualities.

Working primarily with oils, Pam starts her paintings with photographs. The idea of loss, illusion and memory and how it is shaped and recorded by photography is the basis for her work. Oil pastel landscapes have included a series of northern California historical and architectural structures, New Mexico adobe buildings, western ghost towns, and a sequence of paintings of the Chinese Delta town of Locke.

Her most recent series, "Ancestors", where a world of spirits mingle with people, was developed from old family photographs. In this particular series, her use of glazing techniques combined with personal iconography alludes to both the spectral and material worlds creating striking and thought-provoking work.

Pamela Fingado

e-mail: pfingado@mindspring.com
web site: www.pamfingado.com