Swansea artist Kristen Palana comes full circle with new exhibit at the Narrows gallery

FALL RIVER — The opening of a new gallery show at the Narrows Center for the Arts in Fall River is always exciting. With two art galleries, visitors can view a broad range of unique artwork in all mediums including painting, sculpture, mixed media, illustration, photography, drawings, ceramics and more. Artists featured may be local, national, or even international. The next Café Gallery exhibition features an artist with local roots, currently residing and working in Malawi, Southern Africa.

Here and There: Sacred Objects, Spirit Animals, and Symbols for Manifesting Creative Visualizations from Massachusetts to Malawi; Drawings by Kristen Palana opens on June 18.

Palana has a unique connection to the Narrows Center. Twenty-seven years ago, while an undergraduate student at Massachusetts College of Art and Design, Palana had her first professional position working at the Renaissance Gallery, the predecessor to the Narrows Center for the Arts. “Kristen’s energy was contagious,“ stated Bert Harlow, founder of the Renaissance Gallery. “We were in our early days and looking for a new approach to showing art. We wanted the gallery experience to be warm and fuzzy, not intimidating like many galleries can be. I mentioned that I was going to ask the artists exhibiting their work to come up with a design for a mural. The next morning Kristen brought in a sketch and before I even requested proposals, I had found the design! Kristen along with another art student employee, Robert Piretti, scaled the drawing up and created Art for the Soul.”

For locals to Fall River and the Narrows Center, the 8-ft-by14-ft Art for the Soul painting hung outside the Heywood Mill Building on Martine Street and could be viewed by drivers on Route 6. “That mural created a buzz, and in some ways was responsible for putting us on the map,” concluded Harlow.

In 2001 the Renaissance Gallery moved to Anawan Street, the Narrows Center’s permanent home, and Art for the Soul moved as well. For a time, it hung inside the Narrows Center behind the stage, and even in the performers’ Green Room. It currently hangs in the Bert Harlow Community Space being enjoyed by Narrows Center attendees and studio artists.

When asked about the mural, Palana explained, “It was a homage to Raphael's ‘Angeli’ painting which also I felt, fit with the renaissance theme of the then-Renaissance Gallery. I was drawn to the dreamy look of his angels. The text on the mural, ‘art for the soul’ meant to me exactly what it says. I felt then, and again now, that art and creativity and living with good intentions and purpose can uplift ourselves and others.”

When her summer position ended, Palana went back to college where she earned her BFA in painting. After graduation she spent time in Europe and realized how difficult it would be to earn a living as a painter. Returning to the states, she enrolled at Pratt Institute in New York City where she earned an MFA in Computer Graphics and Interactive Media so she could return to Europe and teach.

After a few years teaching at the college level, Palana and her husband made the leap to live in Rome where she became a tenured associate professor of Digital Media at The American University of Rome and began doing digital and media work for the United Nations.

Never one to grow too comfortable, Palana and her family left the comfort and security of her tenured position in Rome and relocated to Africa. “All my life I feel like I’ve been fighting this epic battle between what my heart wants to do and what my brain tells me to do. Somehow though, whenever I’ve defied logic, it always has led to the most amazing and fruitful adventures. I feel like we grow more when we leave our comfort zone.”

In the back of her mind Palana believed she would someday, perhaps in her sixties, start a gallery and become a “real artist” but her digital work and United Nations training work took precedence. Then came the pandemic. “Living in a country where people die so much more easily of preventable things, I started to get spooked that maybe I wouldn’t be around in 20 years. So, in August 2021 on my 45th birthday, I launched Ma Kalulu Studio(Makalulustudio.com)."

Here and There: Sacred Objects, Spirit Animals, and Symbols for Manifesting Creative Visualizations from Massachusetts to Malawi is Palana’s first fine art show in over 20 years. The works selected pay homage to Malawi and its emerging community of artists and artisans, many of them women. Her work incorporates color psychology and utilizes symbols and patterns with cross-cultural significance. The drawings are a cultural mix including influences from her American/Portuguese upbringing in Swansea.

“It takes determination and a bit of scrappiness to make any kind of career in the arts which I think I got from my time in Swansea and Fall River. People here get things done even when the going gets tough. In that way, people from Massachusetts and Malawi have quite a lot in common. People do what they can with what they already have, wherever they might be and try to make the best of it,” concluded Palana.

The Narrows Center is thrilled that Palana, returning to her fine arts roots, has come full circle, and is sharing her drawings in the place she launched her career. The public is invited to an opening reception and meet and greet with the artist on June 18, from 1 pm to 3 pm The Narrows Center is located at 16 Anawan Street in Fall River. The exhibition will run until July 30. The art galleries at the Narrows Center are open Thursday through Saturday from noon to 5 pm and admission is free. For more information, visit narrowscenter.org.

This article originally appeared on The Herald News: Narrows Center Gallery show features artist with Full Circle Journey