Pam Sills

A native of New Orleans and long-time resident of Baton Rouge, Pam Kelly Sills was educated at Newcomb College, Tulane University; Yale University’s prestigious Norfolk School of Music and Art; and received an MFA from the University of New Orleans.

Sills work is about color, structure, and pattern capturing the vitality and freshness of landscapes or botanical imagery. Embedded within the (sometimes abstract other times representational) work is a personal symbolism about life, struggle, pain, or pleasure. Plants and gardens serve as visual metaphors expressing conflicting feelings about freedom and restraint in the human condition.

Often created with loose brushwork in vibrant color and texture, my paintings and drawings begin with images based on my own photographs and drawings. They are later more fully developed on paper or canvas. Working with gestures in ink on absorbent paper or in loose oil crayon studies, I employ line and mass to create spatial relationships. Beginning with thin washes and then layering wet into wet on canvas or panels, her paintings evolve, in all or part, from representation to abstraction until a solution asserts itself. It is a process of inclusion and exclusion, balance, and instability....

MFA 1986 University of New Orleans
BFA 1964 Newcomb College, Tulane University
Honors: Member Scholars and Fellows Honor Society
Mary L. Neil Prize in Art
1964 Yale University, Norfolk School of Music and Art Scholarship
BID 2016 Louisiana State University
Honors: Interior Design Service Award
Tiger Athletics' Foundation Award

2022 One Person Exhibition
Degas Gallery, New Orleans, LA
2021 One Person Exhibition
Drawings and Collages, Frameworks
Gallery, Baton Rouge, LA
1989 Group Exhibition
Louisiana Artists’ Pages: Love in The Ruins.
Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, LA
Two Person Exhibition
New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts, New
Orleans, LA
One Person Exhibition
New Orleans Opera Association, Theater of
the Performing Arts, New Orleans, LA
1987 Group Exhibition
Art for Arts’ Sake, Major-Works and Mini-
Works, Contemporary Arts Center, New
Orleans, LA
1985 Group Exhibition
Mini-Works, Contemporary Arts Center, New
Orleans, LA
1984 One Person Exhibition
Mario Villa Gallery, New Orleans, LA
Group Exhibition
Delta Regional Exhibition, Juror: Richard
Koshalek, Arkansas Art Center, Little Rock,
AR
1983 One Person Exhibition
Graphics Editions, New Orleans, LA
One Person Exhibition
Contemporary Art Gallery, Key Biscayne, FL
1982 Group Exhibition ...