Pamela Papas

"A Quiet Moment, " Oil on Canvas Portrait

2002

Pamela Papas was born in 1965 in South Carolina. Her bachelors degree is from Southern Illinois University. She majored in business but her heart has always been in art. She had once said, “My work is always drawn from personal experience. The towns are places I have visited; the people are people I have met, if only for a moment, and even the flowers have graced my own tables. I keep a written journal and regularly paint my everyday surroundings. In fact, if my journals are the text of my life then my paintings are the illustrations. For some reason I have always felt a need to explain myself, as if there is something important I am supposed to share with you but I don't know exactly what that is so I will share the world as I see it in the hopes there will be something there for you to draw on. Something you can learn or hold or keep for yourself; something that brings you comfort and maybe even joy! I have never tried to make a statement, political or otherwise, through my work. I simply paint the things that I find beautiful. For me art is an emotional state. Do you remember when you were a child and you colored for hours at the kitchen table? Or you worked on a model gluing tiny parts until you thought your eyes would pop! Do you remember that feeling of being completely absorbed in what you were doing? You could be occupied for hours in your own world by pure creative spirit. That is art: that feeling of complete absorption, complete involvement in the process of creating. The process of art is a reward in itself. The end result is confirmation of the beauty and enjoyment of the process.”