Born and raised in eclectic Savannah, Ga. Ms. Purvis and her brother were born just nine months apart and seven years later her twin sisters born on her birthday. The entire family practices visual and performance arts. In fact it has been rumored that Roy Clark from Hee Haw is Anna Clark's ( Ms. Purvis' great Grandma's) cousin.
Ms. Purvis started drawing and painting at age 7 and by the time she graduated from Savannah High School, now named Savannah's School of the Arts, she had won several exhibit awards but at that time her passion was math and environmental science. Art was just for fun, and not really a career. But soon Ms. Purvis discovered that no matter what job she tried, she always came back to art, so she opened up Annie Purvis Studios in 1987, which is still running today.
Annie Purvis Studios features Three studios: Portraits, Murals and Abstracts.
"Spaces Traveled" Series left is an example of Ms. Purvis' mixed media oil paintings landscapes for blind reading, like brail.
Ms. Purvis loves playing with color in any medium. Her passion is painting and drawing in any medium. Purvis was identified a master colorist by the Pantene lab to mix colors for antique cars. Ms. Purvis created the Pantene coke cola color and colorized the resin sculptures of Coke pouring out of the back Harley Davison bikes for the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Ga. Mixing color is her greatest joy.
Ms. Purvis received her Associates of Arts at USC Beaufort and then studied Plein Aire Painting and French language at the University Sorbonne. Ms. Purvis moved to Charleston, SC. in 1995 to attend the College of Charleston, where she double majored in Studio Arts and Philosophy. She worked very hard and achieved departmental honors and graduated Magna cum laude in 4 years.
. In 1998, Ms. Purvis exhibited her sculpture Installation "Details from the Inside" (above) during Spoleto Festival on Folly Beach. This sculpture installation is a combination of additive and subtractive sculptural techniques, painting and collage, text based art with a collage of sounds.
Ms. Purvis began to volunteer teaching art when she lived on Folly Beach. After a few years Ms. Purvis decided she could do more to help young people use art to get back on track in life, and kept working with students. Ms Purvis, herself credits art and her early education with helping her navigate some rough times in life. It seemed only natural she would pay it forward. Ms. Purvis started teaching and received her masters in education from Lesley University, Cambridge, Mass., in 2008.
Ms. Purvis finally got to attend SCAD! It was now accredited and she took advantage of the opportunity to work along side her contemporaries from home. Ms. Purvis received her Advanced Placement accreditation from SCAD, and her SC endorsement from USC Upstate. As both an AP reader in Atlanta, and a CCSD Fine Arts gifted and talented adjunct Ms. Purvis is well versed in authentic artistic assessment.
During the summer, Ms. Purvis teaches Advanced Art for the CCSD summer SMAART Program. During her free time Ms. Purvis enjoys spending time with family, friends, animals, nature, and creating art for exhibition and sales.