PICKENS — Court Street Gallery will be hosting its first visiting artist, Elizabeth Snipes, from Feb. 1 to March 9. An opening reception will be held at the gallery on Friday, Feb. 1 from 6-9 p.m.

Snipes is originally from Pickens. She attended Furman University, where she received her B.A. in Studio Art in 2003. She then attended Studio Art Centers International in Florence, Italy, where she received her Post-Baccalaureate Certificate in painting. She earned her MFA from Clemson University in 2007 and taught as Assistant Professor of Art in the painting and drawing area at Missouri State University before beginning her current position as Assistant Professor of Art at Lander University. There, she teaches undergraduate Painting and Drawing courses and Masters of Art in Teaching (MAT) graduate courses.

Snipes’ interest in the subject of the human figure is the commonality in all of her work. Through a combination of expressive mark-making, gestural sketching, blind contour drawing, painting from direct observation, and painting from mediated images, she presents the figure in a state of flux. Each individual depicted seems to fluctuate between being recognizable and confusing, present and absent, familiar and foreign, representational and abstract, and, at times, physical and digital. She believes that presenting the figure in this way reflects the complex nature of interacting with people and places in the 21st century.

Most recently, her paintings have appeared at Gallery 825 in Los Angeles, Cincinnati’s Manifest Gallery’s INPA: International Painting Annual Competition, the Lower Adirondack Regional Art Council in Glens Falls, NY, and at the Riverworks Gallery in Greenville.

She and her husband Wes Rochester live in Greenwood. For more information, contact the Court Street Gallery at (864) 293-9078.