About
Sharon Kopriva

For more than thirty years, Sharon Kopriva has worked in both two and three-dimensional media.  Her visual journeys have taken her through investigations of Pre-Columbian cultures in Peru, a lengthy examination of her Catholic faith, and finally to a convergence of formal religion with the encroaching light and spirituality of the green forests in the Pacific Northwest, redefining and connecting her personal spirituality forever with Nature.

 

Some more recent works are influenced by the current women’s "Know Your Value” movement.  "Breaking Bonds" is a drawing combined with sculptural components.  Kopriva’s newest sculptures, some called "Tubers" and others "Muses", have taken a turn toward abstraction.  Through the meditative ritual of coiling and binding rope around empty space, she has assembled female forms of hemp and other natural materials.  These headless vessels speak of nature, spirituality, and the power of women through the ages.

 

Kopriva has continually exhibited her art since the Fresh Paint exhibition at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, which kicked off her career in the mid-1980s.

 

Selected solo exhibitions include: The Menil Collection, 2000, Houston; Ogden Museum of Southern Art, 2012, New Orleans; National Museum of Peru, 2006, Lima; Metropolitan Museum of Monterrey, 2015; Hilliard Art Museum, 2019, Lafayette.

 

Selected group exhibitions include: National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1988, Washington D.C.; Smithsonian American Art Museum, 1996, Washington D.C.; Amon Carter Museum of American Art, 2017, Fort Worth.

 

Selected permanent collections include: The Menil Collection, Houston; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Art Museum of South Texas, Corpus Christi; The Art Museum of Southeast Texas, Beaumont; Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans; Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas.

 

A Texas native, Kopriva works in Houston and Hope, Idaho.  She earned her Master of Fine Arts degree in painting from The University of Houston in 1981.