Erik Scalavino

(American, 1973)

Erik Scalavino has spent the entirety of his decades-long professional career as a storyteller in various communications roles: radio and television producer, print and broadcast journalist, marketing and public relations executive. He’s also been traveling the world since before he was born (he accompanied his parents to Italy midway through his mother’s pregnancy). Despite a fully obstructed view on that initial voyage, Scalavino has since had the privilege of visiting (and actually seeing!) some of the most breathtaking destinations on the planet, which he loves to help preserve in his travel writing, photography, and humanitarian efforts.

Along the way, Scalavino has enjoyed discovering how traveling heightens our individual and collective sensitivity to Earth’s diverse, yet fragile beauty – often to be found in otherwise overlooked details. Today, that keen attention to detail in his writing, reporting, and photography also informs his realistic oil paintings of beautiful places worldwide. Scalavino’s intimate perspective ultimately helps all of us more fully appreciate our beautiful planet in hopes of inspiring everyone to do what we can to conserve it.

Almost exclusively self-taught, the Rhode Island-based artist began making art as a child when he frequently drew freehand copies of Charles M. Schulz’s Peanuts cartoon strips. Grade school teachers soon recognized Scalavino’s natural talent and secured him a six-month art scholarship at a nearby college, where he studied various art forms and advanced techniques. This experience eventually contributed to his exploration of close-up portraiture as a young adult, first with photorealistic graphite drawings and later in black-and-white oil paintings.

Scalavino’s oil-on-canvas work now features the full spectrum of color to bring alluring travel destinations to life in vibrant detail. His art has exhibited across his native Southern New England, and a number of Scalavino’s original paintings hang in private collections.