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erika@
erikaparrino.com
Erika grew up in the small rural southern California town of Yucaipa. Her favorite activity
as a child was roaming the hills on her mini-bike. She and her sisters spent many hours
creating entire western towns out of modeling clay, which their mother indulgently allowed
them to install on the dining room table.
She spent two years at the University of Redlands
where she studied printmaking, drawing, and art history. She then moved to San Francisco and
completed her degree in Industrial Arts at San Francisco State University. Her varied work history
includes stints as truffle decorator in a chocolate factory, assistant to Jellybean artist
Peter Rocha, waitressing in both London and Fishermans’ Wharf, and ten years in the insurance
industry. Having explored many artistic mediums including lithography, etching, linocuts,
mosaics, drawing, and sculpting, she is now concentrating on painting and printmaking.
Erika recently relocated to Tucson from San Francisco. Her expressive, often colorful work
is primarily inspired by animals and nature. She also enjoys working with architectural
forms, combining realism with abstraction to convey movement as well as mood. Erika
has been commissioned to paint many pet portraits and would love to paint a portrait of
your own special animal.
