Local artist captures faces in a crowd

The walls of artist and photographer Pamela Jay Paralikis' Sebring home are covered with faces. Two grandmotherly portraits in plasticized blues and reds peer out from her dining room walls. In the entryway, a red and orange painting of three laughing boys greets visitors.

"Those were three boys in Thailand," explained the 30-year photographer/painter, whose background includes teaching art, insurance sales and software consulting.

"They were from a village that had never seen an American, and they all wanted to be photographed."

She also showed off a black-and-white portrait of a young woman's face, some studies of African children, and a portrait repeating the face of an elderly Peruvian woman in four yellow, blue, purple and red squares on an enormous canvas.

"I call this 'Tribute to Warhol-Peru,'" said Paralikis.

This member of the Highlands Art League has been painting since the eight grade and enjoys capturing and enhancing faces, especially those of the elderly.

"My first painting was using acrylic house paint, and it was a face. It's always a face," she said.

Paralikis admitted that it is the expressions and the life in faces that draw her to them. "Most of the faces I have are smiling. They make me feel good, and hopefully they make others feel good."

While she has captured faces from around the world in her portraits, these days the Sebring resident is sticking closer to home, painting portraits of faces she sees around Highlands County. Those faces can be found in places as mundane as the waiting room at the local YMCA.

"I keep a camera in my pocketbook," Paralikis explained. When she sees an interesting face in good light, especially an older person, she asks her to think of her grandchildren, then clicks.

Once home, Paralikis manipulates the photograph on her computer, then uses a projector to project the image onto a canvas. Meticulously, she uses a pencil to trace where her brushstrokes will go. Finally, she paints the final product.

"Leonardo da Vinci used the precursor to the camera-the camera obscura," explained Paralikis as she moved around her office/studio amidst three computers, white and painted canvases, a little menorah, and bags of paints and brushes.

This "pinhole camera" as it is referred to, involved making a pinhole in a dark room through which bright light could enter from outside. The pinhole projected images from outside the room upside down onto a canvas or other flat surface through the surprising physical laws of optics and refraction.

"If (da Vinci) had been alive today, he could have used my camera and computer," said the artist with a smile.

Much of Paralikis' work is inspired by people she met while working as a global volunteer in Lima, Peru.

After being laid off her consultancy job, Paralikis spent a month volunteering with a program called los Martincitos, which provides food, medical care, and activities for the abject elderly poor of Lima.

"They are the poorest of the poor who don't have anyone to take care of them," explained Paralikis.

She was so touched by her experience there that Paralikis began to volunteer regularly at los Martincitos. She started a non-profit called Adopt a Grandparent to raise funds to support the group's efforts.

"This is Amador and Teofila," said Paralikis', gesturing to a portrait of an elderly couple. "They had no roof. Adopt a Grandparent built them a roof."

Paralikis recently turned over directorship of the growing organization to Susie Taylor, whom she described as being young and enthusiastic about the endeavor.

"It was too much work," she said with a laugh. "I wanted to paint!"

Now Paralikis paints every day, portraits in bright colors, natural hues or black and white.

She can be contacted at 863-414-0600. Information on Adopt a Grandparent is available at www.adopt-a-grandparent.org.