Noelle Imparato

“The destiny of man is to become divine” was the call I heard at age fifteen while watching a documentary on Sri Aurobindo in France in 1958. That message was such a contrast to my Catholic vision of God sitting on a cloud that, right there and then, I knew my life purpose would be to awaken people with films like this one had done for me. My heart sank when Mom declared that film school in Paris was a place of perdition and sent me to architecture school instead. It set me up on a lifelong journey of twists and turns to follow my heart against all odds. I quit architecture, put myself through film school, embarked for India twice, failed twice, ending up working in Hollywood instead … with some success, but deep down I felt like a failure. I was making mainstream television, not the films I had set out to make when I heard the call.

That’s when I signed up for a painting retreat at the Esalen Institute where our teacher Michele Cassou declared, “The product is none of your business.” Disturbing childhood memories arose when I painted, filled with anger against my mother. On the 3rd day, I exclaimed, “I’m finished. I’m ready to paint a Madonna!” “How do you know you are finished?” Michele asked, insisting that I keep painting. Reluctantly, I surrendered to her demand and let go of control. Twenty minutes later, I was enthralled painting tiny flowers on the mantle of the mother. To my amazement, it transformed her gray cloak into the sacred robe of the Virgin, metamorphosing the Dark Mother into the Good Mother. Suddenly, my anger was gone. It transmuted into a state of grace with warm silk dribbling down my spine. That's when I fell in love with process art painting.

“Painting For Life” was born. I would do with paint what I couldn't do with film.

Noelle Imparato is a French American artist based in Baltimore after spending 30 years in Los Angeles. She facilitates her “Painting For Life” workshop while writing a 2-volume book. Vol. 1 pioneers Painted Memoir as a new literary subgenre by fusing writing and painting into an alchemical practice that heals and reveals. In Vol. 2 she explores the method she developed with her "Painting For Life" workshop over the past 20 years.

Noelle has done an Artist Talk about her book at the Baltimore Museum of Art, and art galleries in the US and Paris, France.

Once the book is published, Noelle plans to exhibit the 40 paintings featured in it with an oversized model of the book as a multimedia artwork. She also curates Group Shows with her "Painting For Life" workshop's attendants.

Her Paintings have been shown and sold in the US and abroad.

CREDENTIALS

A PhD in Mythology with an emphasis in Depth Psychology, Pacifica Graduate Institute, Santa Barbara, CA, 2002

1962-66 Ecole des Beaux-Arts-Architecture, Nantes, France

1966-70 Film schools, France and Belgium

EXPERIENCES

1974-76 Heading “Airbrushé,” Graphic Art Studio, Los Angeles, that employed 75 people and produced 1 million items airbrushed by hand in 2 years

1978-94 Working in Hollywood as an Emmy-nominated Film Editor, a Filmmaker (Hollywood 90028, 45min doc., PBS-LA, 1995; Terrence McKenna at Esalen Institute in 1989, 1hr doc. Premiered online on “Psychedelic Seminars,” April 3, 2020, with a 50,000 people audience), and a Script Writer (“Oversoul Seven” sold to Harry Winer of Pierrot Prods, now Smash Media Inc)

1999-2024 Running her Painting For Life workshop in Los Angeles, France, Spain, Baltimore, and now on Zoom