Andrea La Valleur-Purvis
Andrea La Valleur-Purvis makes steel sculptures that map what it feels like to hold opposing forces without resolving them. The work is precise, physical, and permanently open — balanced not as conclusion, but as practice.
Andrea La Valleur-Purvis makes steel sculptures that map what it feels like to hold opposing forces without resolving them. The work is precise, physical, and permanently open — balanced not as conclusion, but as practice.
Her sculptures range from pedestal-scale pieces to large outdoor installations, with works held in private, corporate, and public collections and exhibited in galleries and public spaces throughout Texas, including at the Marfa Invitational.
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.
August 12, to September 9, 2026
Art for Advocacy Preview Exhibit
Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center
NorthPark Center
8687 N Central Expy,
Dallas, Texas 75225
Sept 26, 2026 – January, 2027
Solo Exhibition
The Dreamer’s Gallery
702 O’Reilly St
Presidio, Texas 79845
(Near Marfa)
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 readable.
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.
Each piece rests on a small, precise point. Most elements move when you touch them — I want you to touch them. Walk around. The sculpture has more than one shape; it rewards the step it takes to find out. A new angle, a new surface, a new color catches the light differently. The work isn’t finished until you’ve moved.
The forms come 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, is not a destination. It is a practice — intentional, ongoing, staying in the question.
