BRIAN REGO (American b. Santa Clara, CA. 1980 - )PainterEverything informs my work. If I am open to what is around me, I can collect a rich storehouse of material. And it’s just life. My undergraduate painting professor told me once to “paint your life, just paint your life”. It remains to be some of the best advice I have ever received. I now have four children, and they bring a lot of living into life - and by that I mean chaos. But it is rich and surprising and demands great struggle. Yet as it does, precious truths about humanity, life and death, and love are revealed. It all makes its way into my work. The initial activity of painting is a result of my connection to a subject. There are some systematic qualities to making paintings but mostly my approach has developed organically and remains quite fluid. There have been no shortcuts, just lots of hard work. I started painting outdoors mainly because of the beauty and the intensity I experienced in the landscape as a child. At first, I would typically resolve an entire painting on location; if not in one session, then in just a couple of sessions. Now, I begin a painting on location, spend as many sessions as required to establish the form of the painting, and then work in the studio to resolve it based on its content. I have found the advantage of utilizing long pauses between decisions, and working in the studio allows me to move at a slower pace. While working in the studio, I will often use my childhood memories to locate elements in my imagination that inform my sensibilities and the narratives of the paintings. I often paint figures in my work because of the psychological and emotional charge they bring to the images. In my work, the figure and the landscape are symbolic and I use them to help viewers connect to the subject. I hope my paintings will appeal to something in the viewer that is profoundly human, that lies on the fringe of memory, a reality both strange and familiar. Brian Rego earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a concentration in painting in 2004 at the University of South Carolina, where he received the Ed Yaghjian Award for distinguished undergraduate work. In 2007 he earned a Master of Fine Arts degree at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, PA, and from 2008 until 2023, Rego co-founded and led the painting collective known as Perceptual Painters, which was dedicated to painting, education, and community. Rego has taught at many schools, among them is the University of South Carolina, the College of Charleston, the University of Mississippi, and Heathwood Hall Episcopal School. He has also taught painting for the Mt. Gretna School of Art (Pennsylvania), Art New England (Vermont), and the Jerusalem Studio School (Italy). In 2022 Rego had his work published in the book Art in the Making, Essays by Artists About What They Do, by the Fisher Press; and in 2023 Rego was awarded the Blackwell Prize in Painting from the University of West Georgia. Rego currently lives in South Carolina with his family. EDUCATION2007 M.F.A. Painting, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, PA2004 B.F.A. Painting, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS2024 Reasons I Stay, Online Exhibition, Nancy Margolis Gallery New York, NY2023 Brian Rego, Blackwell Prize in Painting, The Vault Gallery, University of West Georgia, Carrollton, GA2021 Present Memory, Online Exhibition, Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York, NY2019 Tiny Mirrors, John Davis Gallery, Hudson, NY2019 Affections, Southside Gallery, Oxford, MS2017 Recent Paintings, John Davis Gallery, Hudson, NY2012 Recent Paintings, City Art Gallery, Columbia, SC SELECTED HONORS AND AWARDS2023 The Blackwell Prize in Painting Award, University of West Georgia, Carrollton, GA2004 Ed Yaghjian Award for Distinguished Undergraduate Work, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC1998 Gold Key, The Scholastic Art and Writing Award for Excellence in Visual Arts, Lander University, Greenwood, SC SELECTED FEATURES AND PUBLICATIONS2022 Benson, Christopher & Nicholas. Art In The Making, Essays by Artists About What They Do, (featured on pages 228 - 231), The Fisher Press & The John Stevens Shop 2022 Arango, S. Jorge, Art Review: Painters Go To Different Depths in Portland, Rockland Shows, Press Herald2012 Heid, Karen; Artist Brian Rego, ArtSee Publication