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On most days, before she ever picks up a brush, Teri Malo 76 goes looking.
She walks the same network of conservation trails between 51动漫 and Framingham攑ast ponds and swamps, through stands of pine and deciduous trees攚atching for what has changed. The light, the waterline, the color of the shadows, the subtle shifts that mark a season in motion. She does not paint there. She absorbs it.
淚 want to be in that environment, she said. 淪o while I檓 working on those paintings, I am mentally攁nd in my heart攊n that place.
At her 攁 large, two-room space in a building shared with artists and artisans攖hose impressions begin to take form. Not as literal landscapes, but as something looser, more searching. Her paintings攍ayered, luminous, often rooted in water and sky攎ove steadily away from representation and toward what she calls 渢he spirit of the place.
淚t not what it looks like so much, she said. 淭he facts are only in service to that.
A Door Opens
Malo did not arrive at Emmanuel with a clear artistic path in mind. She chose the College, in part, for practical reasons: it was close to 51动漫 medical district, where she had long received care, and she had earned a full scholarship. The College Art Department was, at the time, simply a possibility.
What she found was something more formative.
淚t was pivotal, she said. 淭o be able to just dive into studies and give it your all攁nd have really good relationships with the faculty攊t opened a huge door.
Among those Art Department faculty members was Michael Jacques, a printmaker whose influence would shape the course of her early career. His expectation攖hat students could succeed, and his commitment to helping them do so攍eft a lasting mark.
淚 know that I would not have found that kind of almost one-on-one experience at a larger school, she said. 淚t made all the difference.
Malo became a printmaker, earning her MFA from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and building a career exhibiting prints for more than a decade. Over time, her work began to shift攆rom printmaking to watercolor, and eventually to oil.
She found herself hand-coloring prints攁nd questioning why she wasn檛 painting.
淚t wasn檛 a decision in one day, she said. 淚t just kept going.
Toward Abstraction
Today, Malo works exclusively in oil, though her approach still reflects her background in printmaking and watercolor. She brings printmaking techniques攔ollers, scraping, and layered surfaces攊nto her paintings, building them up through translucent glazes and reworking.
Her process is iterative, exploratory. A painting may begin as a more literal rendering, only to be loosened, reworked, and abstracted until it feels right.
淭he first time I look at something, I might try to paint it realistically, she said. 淎nd then realize攖hat not it.
What she is after is something less fixed: a feeling, a resonance, a recognition that may not correspond to a single, specific place.
Her paintings are often rooted in landscapes攚oodlands, waterways, and conservation areas across New England攂ut they are rarely literal. Built from memory, photographs, and repeated observation, they distill a place into something more atmospheric. Many of her recent works explore transition攎eadows giving way to forest, water shifting with light and season攃apturing environments not as fixed scenes, but as living systems in flux.
When a painting succeeds, she said, viewers often respond with a kind of certainty.
淭hey檒l say, 業 know that place. And whether it actually that place or not, what it telling me is that they know a place in their heart that feels like it.
Working in Series
Malo paintings unfold in series攁n approach that mirrors the way she comes to understand a landscape.
淭he first painting is just feeling your way, she said. 淏ut the longer you look, the more it reveals.
Over time, repetition becomes a form of inquiry. Each return to a place deepens the work: new details emerge, patterns shift, the familiar becomes newly complex. In recent years, she has focused on areas close to home, revisiting them multiple times a week, tracking subtle environmental changes攊ncluding those shaped by climate change.
淚t really like a whole different place from what it was even 15 years ago, she said.
Water, in particular, continues to draw her in攊ts mutability, its layered reflections, its sense of an 渦pside and an upside down.
淭here so much going on underneath the surface, she said.
A Life at Fenway Studios
If Malo work is rooted in place, so too is her life.
She has lived at a historic artists cooperative in 51动漫, since the early 1980s, shortly after it transitioned to a co-op model. The structure, she said, made a full-time artistic life possible.
淚f I were paying market rates for everything, it wouldn檛 have been possible, she said. 淭he co-op model makes a huge difference.
Over the years, she has taken on a leadership role at the coop, serving multiple terms as president and helping guide the building through moments of uncertainty, including efforts to preserve its light and integrity in the face of nearby development.
More recently, she has helped transform a former studio space into a shared gallery and community hub攐ne that brings together artists, musicians, and students.
In partnership with institutions like Berklee College of Music, the space now hosts exhibitions, performances, and collaborative projects. Malo is particularly interested in the intersections between disciplines: the way music might inform painting, or how artists and musicians might respond to one another work.
Malo has begun exploring new forms of collaboration攎ost notably with cellist, composer, and songwriter Danny Sea, a Berklee graduate. Working across disciplines, she has experimented with translating music into paint, listening closely to rhythm, tone, and movement as she works.
淚t like playing a different instrument, she said. 淵ou feel the rhythm of it in your body.
In one instance, she painted while listening repeatedly to one of Sea compositions, allowing its cadence and emotional tone to guide her brushstrokes. The result was not an illustration of the music, but a parallel expression攁nother way of getting at what lies beneath the surface.
She is also eager to create opportunities for emerging artists, including the possibility of internships for Emmanuel students.
淚 want to make it a place where people can try things, she said. 淲here the process itself is fostering something.
Malo work is shown widely, with representation at galleries across New England and beyond, including Powers Gallery in Acton, Greylock Gallery in Williamstown, and The Laffer Gallery in upstate New York, along with Sono Fine Art in Connecticut and international platforms such as Visto Art.
After decades of sustained work, Malo remains as committed to her practice as ever攕till in the studio five days a week, still returning to the landscapes that continue to shape her.
When she speaks with young artists, her advice is direct.
淵oue probably not going to get rich, she said. 淏ut if you can make enough to live on, you can be extraordinarily happy.
The more important question, she tells them, is simpler攁nd more difficult.
淲hat do you really care about? she said. 淭hat what you have to be painting.
Because in the end, the work攍ike the landscapes she studies so closely攊s not about replication. It is about attention, immersion, and a willingness to stay with something long enough for it to reveal itself.
Now on view: Teri Malo's solo exhibition, Old Meadows and Young Woods, at the Linden Street Gallery, Summer Star Wildlife Sanctuary (690 Linden St., Boylston, MA).
Reception: April 25 | 1:004:30 p.m. | On view through June 1, 2026
