BWPryor is best known for her large, oversized abstract acrylics on canvas, employing the "impasto" technique to impart an almost sculptural quality to her paintings.  Her compositions are explorations of color and their application to canvas using a putty knife (or other unconventional, construction-based tools).  The results are an unpredictable intermingling of colors on canvas, in concert with an extraordinarily thick application of paint which imparts a three-dimensional, almost tactile quality to each finished piece.

 

Pryor spent 20 years in another professional field entirely, and the last 10 as a stay-at-home mom raising two children.  Thus, it is only recently that she has begun to honor her life-long artistic talents by forging a new direction to exhibit and sell her work.

 

Born in Washington, D.C., to an artist-turned-Architect for a father and a master's prepared Special Education teacher for a mother, Pryor cannot remember a time when she was not actively involved in some creative pursuit, beginning first with childhood pencil and ink drawings, and progressing to charcoal and pastels. In adulthood, she became self-taught in calligraphy and floral design, and enjoys creating dramatic tablescapes for parties and holiday dinners.  She often draws sketches before embarking on major interior re-design/decorating projects within her own home, and uses her hands whenever she can in all manner of arts-and-crafts projects. However, brought up to believe art was not “practical” as a profession, she pursued an Economics degree at Smith College instead, but still indulged her artistic sensibilities by enrolling in a studio art class while there.  Later, after earning a master’s degree in Urban & Regional Planning, she became a prolific researcher and writer in the real estate development and community planning fields, still believing it “safer” to write about others’ development designs rather than pursue her own.

 

Now in her fifties, Pryor is making an about-face, embarking on her new career as an artist, grateful for a plethora of opportunities for artists that exist today that did not 30 years ago.  She and her husband have also opened a studio/gallery (BWPryor Fine Art) in the North Carolina city where they currently reside, with the intention of exhibiting her work both locally and nationally.

-BWPryor Fine Art