Lisa Kovvuri is a contemporary realist painter working in the genre of portraiture. Born in Oakland, CA and raised on Cape Cod, MA, she received a BFA in printmaking from the Cleveland Institute of Art in 1991. When her interest later turned to oil painting, she attended various workshops including an intensive painting course at Studio Incamminati in Philadelphia, PA. She eventually went on to study the methods of the Boston School for four and a half years, as taught at Ingbretson Studios, under the tutelage of ARC Master Mary Minifie.
In recent years Lisa has developed an approach to painting which lets her create the subtle qualities of form and surface for which she is becoming known. Using a process of direct, opaque layers of paint carried through to a refined finish with sensitively considered detail, she can delve beneath the appearances of her subjects, and explore and express the substance of an inner emotional world which we all share.
Lisa’s 2017 solo exhibition, The Portrait Experience was held at the Whistler House Museum of Art in Lowell, MA. She was a resident studio artist at the museum from 2014 to 2019 where she also taught drawing, painting, and printmaking classes in the museum’s Youth Summer Art Program.
Her work has been featured in American Art Collector, Southwest Art, Artscope Magazines, the Portrait Society of America’s quarterly journal, The Art of the Portrait, and has been exhibited nationwide in major juried exhibitions including Oil Painters of America, The National Oil and Acrylic Painters Society, Salon International, and The Salmagundi Club, NY.
Recent honors she received in 2020 include Finalist in The Art Renewal Center 15th Annual Salon, Select 50 in The Portrait Society of America International Portrait Competition, and 10th Place in The Portrait Society of America Members Only Competition. She was a Portrait Society of America Members only Competition Finalist in 2019, and in the same year received The Whistler Award in The Whistler House Museum of Art Juried Members Exhibition, and The Ridgewood Art Institute Award in the Salmagundi Club NY Open Exhibition.
Working full time in her Southern New Hampshire studio, Lisa currently shows and sells her work through invitational, group, and juried exhibitions locally and nationally, and on commission.
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