Hattiesburg, Miss., March 22, 2013 - William Carey University hosted a reception for the Watercolor Revisited exhibit by Paula Temple in the Lucile Parker Art Gallery on March 19. The exhibit is on display through March 27.
The work in this exhibition is a wide range of Temple’s art with images of the human figure, fantasy works involving birds and winged images, and rose studies that she created while taking study abroad art students to Queens Mary’s Rose Garden in Regents Park in London, England. Temple uses 140 - 300 pound watercolor paper with watercolor paint in tubes, watercolor crayons, and a variety of instruments from brushes, sponges, toothbrushes, spray bottles, sticks and objects that are stenciled onto the paper to create her paintings.
After earning her BFA degree in printmaking from the University of Memphis, Temple earned a MFA degree in painting from the University of Tennessee. Following five years of teaching art, she joined the Peace Corps in 1978 and went overseas to work in the Grenada Art Center in St. Georges, Grenada, in the Eastern Caribbean. In this area, she was isolated from the contemporary world of art in the U.S. and worked with self-taught artists in the region who taught her the importance of image choices and color.
“Isolating myself from other artists and movements in art history enabled me to reevaluate my role as an artist,” Temple said. “I also found myself more able to understand criticisms of my work and to be more satisfied with the process of creating works of art.”
Temple reentered the U.S. in December 1984, and in 1985, she began teaching at the University of Mississippi. Over the past 27 years, she has taught figure drawing, watercolor, mixed media on paper, and design courses to undergraduates and graduate students. She has also led study abroad art courses in Ortigia, Sicily, and London, England, and had faculty exchange exhibitions and workshops in San Jose, Costa Rica. This summer, Temple will be an Artist-in-Resident at the CAMAC Arts Centre in Marnay-Sur-Siene, France.
Temple has had three Visual Artist Fellowships from the Mississippi Arts Commission, an Honored Artist award from the Mississippi Committee for the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and received The Mississippi Arts and Letters Award in Visual Arts in 2000. She participated in the Centennial Art Exhibition “Art Who Teach” for State Universities and Land Grant Colleges at the Federal Reserve Board in Washington, DC. Temple also received a painting commission from the American Cancer Society and this project was a large triptych painting that included a lecture tour and appearances throughout the U.S.
Temple’s work is represented in the Carol Robinson Gallery in New Orleans, La.; the Southside Gallery in Oxford, Miss.; the Harrington Brown Gallery in Memphis, Tenn., and the Yellow Poui Gallery in St. Georges, Grenada.
