"...One painting that lands on the poetic side of her oeuvre is Mad to Live from her Everything is Fine exhibition of five years ago. Like much of Eaton’s work, this exhibition looked at humanity’s interaction with the natural world. In this painting in particular the artist explored the rarity of unspoiled American landscapes and the re-imagined freedom of the open road. Mad to Live was inspired by Jack Kerouac’s 1957 novel On the Road, specifically the quote: "... because the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like the fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes ‘Awww!’...”

-Allison Malafronte

Fine Art Connoisseur

Selected by editor-in-chief Peter Trippi

July/August 2018

"...In the center’s mezzanine gallery, two Hudson River School works — “The Oxbow,” from 1836, by Thomas Cole, and “Twilight in the Wilderness,” 1860, by Frederic Edwin Church — served as the starting points for Purdy Eaton’s two identically named paintings.

While similar in composition and palette, Ms. Eaton’s images incorporate contemporary references. Her “Oxbow” includes cookie-cutter suburban houses along the shoreline, while on the riverbank in her “Twilight in the Wilderness,” she has added tiny lettering, phrases taken from Bruce Nauman’s 1984 neon “One Hundred Live and Die.”..."

The New York Times

By SUSAN HODARA

Published: October 19, 2012