Andrea La Valleur-Purvis cuts and welds steel into forms that map what it feels like to hold opposing forces without resolving them. The work rewards every step it takes to walk around it — a study in equilibrium not as a destination, but as something you keep choosing.
Her sculptures range from pedestal-scale pieces to large outdoor installations, with works held in private and public collections and exhibited in galleries and public spaces throughout Texas.
She is among the international artists making innovative, original, and thought-provoking contributions to the contemporary art world — recognized in 2025 with the Artistic Merit Award from the Luxembourg Art Prize and the Art 100 VAA International Prize, and featured in Glasstire, NPR Radio, and Cohart Magazine. She holds a BFA in Sculpture from the College of Visual Arts (St. Paul, MN) and lives and works in Waco, Texas.
May 22 - August 22, 2026
Austin, TX
August 7 - September 19, 2026
Center for Contemporary Arts
Abilene, TX
For Dallas Children's Advocacy Center Fundraiser
September 12, 2026
Dallas, TX
September 17 - 26, 2026
Women & Their Work
Austin, TX
Steel is a forgiving material. If I cut something, I can weld it back together. If I bend something with heat, I can return it to its previous shape — not seamlessly, but that’s the point. I want the decisions to be indelible.
My sculptures begin as flat sheets. The curves and shapes emerge from removing material from a plane, from heat, from the mark of what was tried and reconsidered. Some welds stay visible. The process stays in the work.
The forms rests on a small, precise point. Most top elements move when you touch them — I want you to touch them. Walk around. The sculptures have more than one shape; it rewards the steps it takes to find out. A new angle, a new surface, a new color catches the light differently. That’s intentional.
My work comes from a question I’ve been living with for a long time: what does it feel like to hold irresolvable forces — rigidity and flexibility, stability and change — without collapsing the tension into a resolution? I grew up across British, German, and American contexts, watching how pressure accumulates around identity, how people navigate what they’re expected to become. The sculptures don’t illustrate that. But they come from it.
Equilibrium, in this work. It is a practice — intentional, ongoing, staying in the question.
