October 2011

USC Sumter in Sumter, SC, Features Works by Lisa Puryear

USC Sumter in Sumter, SC, is presenting the exhibit, Everything is Coming Up Poppies!, featuring paintings by Lisa Puryear, on view in the Upstairs Gallery through Nov. 5, 2011.

Puryear has been painting most of her life. She began her studies as a child, painting first under Mildred White at the Sumter Gallery of Art in Sumter. In High School she worked for famous SC artist Ray Davenport. She was among a select group of young artists to attend the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts at Furman University in the summer of 1985. 

Puryear continued her studies in art at the University of South Carolina under Cara-Lin Getty, Phillip Mullen, Roy Drasites and Ann Hubbard, to name a few.  Puryear is currently a member of the Trenholm Artists Guild in Columbia, SC, and the About Face group at the Columbia Museum of Art. 

Puryear is inspired by many things in nature. Not interested in realism, she takes the object or photo and transforms it into something unique by bringing her paintings to life using a variety of techniques and interesting colors. The artist hopes that looking at her paintings can evoke a sense of peace and tranquility.

Puryear offers the following statement which defines her perspective of her work and goals: “I paint so that I can express myself and create beauty. I have always gotten lost in my art work – I can paint for hours and forget about eating or sleeping. Most of my paintings are inspired by images I’ve captured in a photo or just by something in my mind. I like taking an image and making it my own – what we see in a photograph is seldom what we are actually processing in our mind. I remember a shape or a color that may not be apparent to everyone. Sometimes the colors I use in my paintings are dissections of the whole – a brown tree might look like blue, red and yellow to me instead of just brown. As an artist I want to stretch the imagination of the viewer.”

For further information check our SC Institutional Gallery listings, call Cara-lin Getty, Gallery Director, at 803/938-3727 or e-mail at (cgetty@uscsumter.edu) or the Gallery Assistant, Laurel Jordan at (jordalau@uscsumter.edu).

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