Brian Rego (b. 1980) received his MFA from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, his BFA from the University of South Carolina, and currently resides in Columbia, SC, with his wife and four children.“I paint my subject from life and consider it to be a great joy and an immense struggle. I hope to capture the feeling of these synonymous realities in my paintings. For me, the purpose of painting is to tap into something that is profoundly human, something sensual that lies on the fringe of memory, a reality both strange and familiar.”"I don’t go for the exterior significance of a particular subject or anything like that when I am painting outdoors, I am not interested in preserving it as much as I am in discovering it, turning it inside out, crumpling it up and throwing it back out there." 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 in 2008 Rego co-founded the painting collective known as Perceptual Painters, dedicated to teaching, exhibiting, and painting. In 2015, Rego co-founded the Midlands School of Art, based in Columbia, SC, where he is co-director. He has taught drawing and painting at Benedict College, the University of South Carolina, Columbia College, and Heathwood Hall. He has also led programs for the Mt. Gretna School of Art (Pennsylvania), Art New England (Vermont), the Beverly Street Studio School (Virginia), and the Jerusalem Studio School (Italy). Rego exhibits his work and teaches nationally and resides in South Carolina with his wife, Elizabeth, and their four children. Read More