BIO
Award-winning artist Lori Loveberry George is a professional artist, curator, teacher and arts advocate. She is a 2008 graduate of Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, Florida, and a 1983 graduate of Ringling College of Art and Design, where she was a printmaking major. She is now an instructor at Ringling College of Art and Design in Sarasota where she teaches drawing, painting, and workshops, as well as teaching in Sarasota County schools and libraries. In addition, Lori continues to create and teach private classes at her Sarasota studio.
One of her recent work includes collaborations with portrait photographer and University of Buffalo professor, Bruce Jackson, and Sarasota artist Pamela Callender, curator of the multi-disciplinary exhibit titled In Your Face, the Power of Portraiture. This series of portraits were drawn from Jackson’s found photographs of prison ID photos from the Arkansas State Penitentiary system. Like much of George’s art practice, the In Your Face exhibit included not only visual art and photography, but also poetry and performance. In this way, the In Your Face portrait series project was curated to promote an ongoing dialogue of social justice through multi-disciplinary expressions of portraiture.
ARTIST STATEMENT
I express myself best through drawing and the study of form. With a variety of mark making tools and materials, I paint on my drawings and draw on my paintings. Layering is significant to my thought and working process. I construct, deconstruct, and rebuild, sometimes re-working each piece many times over. It parallels a personal process of beginnings, scarring and healing. Each step brings me closer to playing out my story and leaving my ghosts ambiguously revealing themselves underneath. I play with spontaneous and intuitive mark making and color, often working ambidextrously to capture a movement, a gesture, or a thought.
In all of my art-making, I am influenced primarily in the gesture, movement, and expression of the human form. In particular, I am invested in notions of artistic anthropomorphism and personification of human experience. Both have ancient roots as storytelling and artistic devices, and most cultures have traditional fables with anthropomorphized animals as characters. Ancient mythologies frequently represented the divine as deities with human forms and qualities; exhibiting behaviors that were used to explain natural phenomena and historical events.
My hope is that objects can metaphorically represent elements of humanity; sinks become aging self-portraits, dolls become angels and talismans, and red poppies become blood and muti. Muti, a Zulu word meaning medicine, is a significantly powerful word-thought in my mark making processes and work titles.
I work on multiple pieces at the same time. When I have to think of where to place the next mark, I lay it aside and work on another piece. Which allows me to see it new again and keeps the work fresh and energetic.
I experiment combining traditional and non-traditional artist materials, and historical artistic methods and materials. I research and like the tactility of making my own paints and binders— watercolors, oils, clays, and glues— mulling them on a marble slab.
I worked many years as a decorative and mural painter, which expanded my skill set with plasters, gilding clays, animal hide glues, metal leaf, trowels, and sanders. I like trying new mark making tools and collect bamboo, soil and clay, animal tails, and rusty metal. My substrate is typically heavy watercolor paper, nautical charts, wood, and canvas. They are versatile and allows aggressive manipulation.
Nautical charts serve a two- fold purpose: they stand on their own as a finished work of art, drawn and painted over, and can be easily manipulated into three-dimensional shapes. It’s art on art.
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
2018 Celebrating African American Cultures, Fogartyville Arts Center, Sarasota, Florida
2017 Eckerd College Exhibition, St. Petersburg, Florida
2016 Beyond Criminal, Fogartyville Arts Center, Sarasota, Florida
2015 Only 50, Fogartyville Arts Center, Sarasota, Florida
Annual Faculty and Staff Exhibit, Ringling College of Art and Design, Sarasota, Florida
2014 Portraiture, Solo Exhibit, Ringling College of Art and Design, Sarasota, Florida
Portraiture, Solo Exhibit, Sarasota Arts and Cultural Alliance, Sarasota, Florida
2013 In Your Face Exhibit, The HuB, Sarasota, Florida
In Your Face Exhibit, Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, Florida
2012 Marriot Springhill Suites Exhibition, Sarasota, Florida
Morrison Interior Design Exhibition, Sarasota, Florida
2011 Avenida de Colores Launch Party Exhibition, Sarasota, Florida
2010 Play Matters, a collaborative exhibit, Women’s Resource Center, Sarasota, Florida
Outside Looking In Juried Exhibition, Art Center Sarasota, Sarasota, Florida
Selby Public Library Eleventh Annual Invitational Art Exhibit, Sarasota, Florida
2009 Art and Frame Juried Exhibition, Art and Frame of Sarasota Gallery, Sarasota,
Florida
Green: The Primary Color, Art Center Sarasota, Sarasota, Florida
Masquerade, Mystery, and Mischief Juried Exhibition, Art Center Sarasota, Sarasota,
Florida
Icons and Idols Juried Exhibition, Art Center Sarasota, Sarasota, Florida
2009 Sites Exhibition at City Hall, Arts Center Sarasota, Sarasota, Florida 2009
Alternative Visions of Peace, The Studio @ 620, St. Petersburg, Florida
Neighbors Not Strangers Juried Exhibition, Art Center Sarasota, Sarasota, Florida
2008 “8/8/’08-Two” Juried Exhibition, Art Du Monde Gallery, St. Petersburg, Florida.
Eckerd College 50th Anniversary Alumni Art Exhibit, Sarasota, Florida
Eckerd College Faculty and Student Annual Show, St. Petersburg, Florida
Members Exhibition, The Arts Center, St. Petersburg, Florida.
Sites Exhibition at City Hall, Arts Center Sarasota, Sarasota, Florida
Eckerd College Senior Thesis Exhibit, The Arts Center, St. Petersburg, Florida.
2007 War Paint, Elliott Gallery, Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, Florida
Eckerd College Faculty and Student Annual Show, Seminole, Florida.
Alumni Exhibition, Ringling College of Art, Sarasota, Florida
1983 Celebration of Women Juried Exhibition, Ft. Myers, Florida.
SELECTED AWARDS
2009 Art and Frame Juried Exhibition, Honorable Mention. Juror: Jaimie Cordero, Art and Frame Sarasota Gallery, Sarasota, Florida
2008 “8/8/’08-Two” Juried Exhibition, First Prize. Juror: Jordon Meinster, Art Du Monde
Gallery, St. Petersburg, Florida
2008 Excellence in Visual Arts Award, Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, Florida
1983 Staffile and Haywood Merit Award, Celebration of Women Juried Exhibit, Ft. Myers, Florida.
EDUCATION
2008 BA Visual Arts, with Distinction, Eckerd College, St. Petersburg, Florida
1983 Certification, with Honors, Ringling School of Art and Design, Sarasota, Florida
TEACHING AND WORKSHOPS
2016-2018 Private studio, Sarasota, Florida. Teach drawing, painting, and workshops.
2014-2018 Ringling College of Art and Design, Sarasota, Florida. Instructor for painting,
drawing, and workshops.
2012-2018 Sarasota County Libraries, Sarasota, Florida. Teach art classes for art programs in partnership with Sarasota Arts and Cultural Alliance.
2009 Shorecrest Preparatory School, St. Petersburg, Florida. Three-day painting
workshop.
PERMANANT COLLECTIONS
Mr. and Mrs. Roger Bury, Capetown, South Africa
Ms. Priscilla Kempson, Johanesburg, South Africa
Ms. Kuniko Yamamoto, Sarasota, Florida
Ms. Barbara Richards, Sarasota, Florida
Mr. and Mrs. Jack Levine, Sarasota, Florida
Ms. Priscillia Adams, Sarasota, Florida
Mr. and Mrs. Mark O’bryant, Billing, Montana
Mr. and Mrs. Eugene Marra, Cooperstown, New York
Mr. Robert Stuffings, Longboat Key, Florida
Mr. and Mrs. Edward Goldberg, Longboat Key, Florida
Ms. Allison McCall, Tampa, Florida
Ms. Julia McGinty, St. Petersburg, Florida
Mr. and Mrs. John Carroll, Sarasota, Florida
Mr. and Mrs. Gordon Watson, Dubuque, Iowa
Mr. and Mrs. Richard Franzel, Sydney, Australia
Mr and Mrs. Aviv Soussan, New Rochelle, New York
Mr. and Mrs. D.R. Zaccone, Sarasota, Florida
Mr. and Mrs. Tony Pompliano, Longboat Key, Florida
Mrs. Marty White, Longboat Key, Florida
LINKS
https://www.tampabaynewswire.com/2014/09/11/patricia-thompson-gallery-27575
http://www.sarasotapeacenter.org/beyond-criminal.html
http://www.inyourfaceart.org/events.html
http://cdn3.creativecirclemedia.com/tampabay/files/5663b49a56.pdf
https://artiststelltheirstories.blogspot.com/2015/10/lori-loveberry-george-mixed-media.html
http://ticket.heraldtribune.com/2014/01/17/public-pianos-make-their-debut/