Join Us For A Special Viewing @ The October 7th Opening Gala!
This exhibition titled "Now and Here" is a compilation of figures and portraits inspired by my beautiful young model, Brianna Lloyd. Through a photo session done earlier this year, we came up with a plethora of great poses that sparked my creative juices and influenced the stories that you see here.
I tend to enjoy working in series because I'm able to hash out an idea, or range of ideas, over several separate pieces. I find it to be therapeutic, and usually leads to possibilities for yet another series.
Most of the work here is allegorical, which is something I noticed only after I had completed several pieces. Personal challenges leading to lots of self-reflection, coupled with worldwide challenges and historic changes, particularly over the last couple of years, have deeply affected my thinking and my art.
Artists, and the art that we create, is constantly evolving. I believe that this exhibition is truly representative of who I am right now, and that's all that I, or any other artist, can ask of themself.
Welcome To loriisom.com
Custom Portraits
by Lori
Charcoal, Pencil or Acrylic
For A Free Consultation Call
803-323-8001 or email below
Portraits by Lori Commission Samples
Portrait Commission Price List:
Charcoal or Pencil Drawing (one person)
Size 9x12 - 11x14
Price $150-and up
(Extra Fee for Additional Person(s)
Acrylic Painting (One Person)
Size 9x12 - 11x14
Price $275-and up
($225-and up for Additional Person(s)
Schedule A Consultation
Inquire for pricing on larger sizes and fine art collages.
Lori Artist Statement
About Lori Isom
Artist Lori Starnes Isom opens Portrait Studio at Gallery 537 in Camden, SC
Featuring a new series of modern portraits telling a historical tale with Queens at the Opening of Camden's Newest Art gallery, G537 @ 537 East Dekalb St., Camden South Carolina.
With years of her life dedicated to working as a professional dancer, singer and actress in New York and Los Angeles, Lori Isom brings the movement, emotion and all the creative elements of theater and dance to her portraits with unusual compositions, structures and colors in a large palette of different mediums from oils, watercolors to pastels, assemblages and collages.
As a student of the Parsons School of Design with studies in fine art and fashion design, Lori has predominately taught herself the varied techniques of creation in figurative and portrait art. As an artist, her deepest desire, is to present her subjects in the most sincere and expressive way, making sure the emotion and personality behind the painting is both felt and seen.
Lori has been celebrated in the pages of American Art Collector, interviewed for television and newspaper articles, as well as a featured artist in many group exhibitions. She has been commissioned to paint hundreds of individual and family portraits and is now celebrating the opening of her first portrait studio at G537 gallery in Camden, SC. Planting herself in a place of deep family roots, she hopes to make portraits more accessible to every one; moving beyond the influence of societal values. Creating a space where anyone can be immortalized in a painting and create an heirloom for generations to come.
EXHIBITIONS:
Gallery 537 - Solo Art Exhibition, Camden, SC. October 2, 2021 - present.
S.C. Water media Society 44th Annual Juried Art Touring Exhibition, Cola 2021-2022.
Moja Juried Art Exhibition - City Art Gallery, Charleston, SC. September 30 - October 10, 2021.
Richland County Public Library - Facing Race (group exhibition), Cola. SC, July-September 2021.
Richland County Public Library - Solo Exhibition. Cola, SC, March 2020
North Charleston City Gallery - Grey Matters: Women in Progress. N. Charleston SC, February 2020
Supper Table Traveling Exhibition (Jasper Project) Cola, SC, September 2019-present
Piccolo Spoleto Juried Art Exhibition - Charleston City Gallery, Charleston SC, May - June 2019
Arts Center of Kershaw County - Duo art exhibition. Camden, SC, October 2018 - November 2018
North Charleston Cultural Arts Center, Artist-in-Residence - N. Charleston, SC, 2011-2012
New Mixed Media Works
Additional Works By Lori
Available for Viewing @ Gallery 537 Free Shipping!
Guardian
$350
14x18 (framed) mixed media and collage
Public Housing
$650.00
20x16, acrylic on canvas
Little Miss Sunshine 14x18 acrylic
$350
Playmates Soldiers 18x24 Acrylic on Canvas
$1800
Now Begin 18x14 Acrylic on Canvas
$1200
A Modest Woman
$850
24x18 Acrylic on Canvas
You Wore That Green Dress
$250.00
14x11, acrylic on canvas
Road trip With Granddaddy
$450.00
14x18 (framed) charcoal on toned paper
Cream Rises 2022 "ALL WOMEN ARTIST"
$2,650
24x48, acrylic on canvas
Memory
$1250
28x22, acrylic on canvas
Like Father, Like Son
$500
14x11, acrylic on canvas
Rommie and Jule
$700
18x24, acrylic on canvas
Framed Original Pieces & Prints Available
"The Queens Series"
Now on View @ Gallery 537
"Emergent: Winds of Change", 24x96 Acrylic and Mixed Media on Canvas
$6,275
By the time we've lived a good part of our lives, the moment comes, for most of us, when we begin to ask ourselves one of the most important questions of our life experience: "Who am I?". That question was the inspiration for this painting that depicts a woman in the midst of discovering herself. Her flowing dredlocs in cool muted tones represent movement and the butterfly motif depicts transformation and freedom.
"Out of the White Fields", Acrylic and collage on Canvas, 30x40
Sold
Cotton was hugely successful as one of the first crops harvested in early South Carolina history. This success was driven by the unceasing labor of human beings whose lives were stolen from them in order to satisfy the burgeoning demand of agricultural goods. The woman represents a descendant of the enslaved people who cultivated the crop. However, she is reclaiming the dignity, significance and strength of her ancestors by transforming the picked cotton into a crown.
"Undefeated", Acrylic on Canvas, 30x40
Sold
Courage is the ability to keep lifting oneself up in the face of adversity. The woman in this piece holds her head high taking a stance of defiance and pride. She stands in a multicolored field, each color symbolizing the African journey: blue for the water that the slave ships travelled through, red (blood), black (skin) and green (land) the colors of the panafrican flag, and gold for Carolina gold - the name that was given to this most treasured crop that was brought over from West Africa. I
"The Seeds of Indigo" Watercolor on paper, 24x29
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I found the story of the determined young Eliza Pinkney intriguing, as well as her relationship to the enslaved people who helped her pursue her quest to develop the complex technique for producing indigo. I wanted to create a portrait of her in the style of one that would have been painted in her era. The frame had to complete the story.
"Currency" Acrylics and tobacco leaves on canvas, 40x30
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In the south, tobacco leaves were used as currency for the purchase of indentured and enslaved people to help cultivate the crop. In this painting, the woman wears an ornamental piece, perhaps for fashion or ceremony, made of the very object which was previously symbolic of forced labor, oppression and greed.
"Indigenous South" Acrylics and Oil Pastels on Canvas, 30x60
$4600
This female chief, ruled over the land known as Cofitachequi, now known as Camden, South Carolina. When the Spanish explorers invaded the native's territory, exploiting, looting and essentially holding their chief, hostage. She’s presented in three images - looking out at the viewer as a self possessed woman leader, the second image depicts introspection and the third an upward gaze seeking something larger outside of herself.
"Princess Sugar"; Blue Eyes
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This painting tells the story of a young girl of mixed heritage as a result of the union between a slave and slaveholder. The foreground depicts the European home she resides in and is well provided for, whereas the background, seen behind the wallpaper which is peeled away, reveals her African lineage by way of Barbados.