Sharon Kopriva - "Vigilant"

Vigilant, color stone an dplate lithograph, image 40 × 26 inches, edition of 20, Publication by December 2025

The egg has long been a central motif in Sharon Kopriva’s artistic practice, symbolizing the cyclical interplay of life, death, and rebirth. In Vigilant, Kopriva situates the egg within a protective totem, a figure that embodies both guardianship and attentiveness. Standing resolutely amid a surrounding storm, the totem creates a space where new life can emerge and thrive, underscoring themes of resilience, care, and spiritual presence that pervade her work.

Vigilant is both Kopriva’s largest print and her first full-color lithograph, realized through five distinct layers. One layer utilizes three carefully blended colors to create gradients in the sky and delicate highlights on the egg, enhancing the sense of atmospheric depth. In the Flatbed studio, Kopriva applied unconventional tools, including a toothbrush, to flick drawing material across the stone, producing a hazy, textured surface that has become characteristic of her visual language.

Kopriva splits her time between Houston, Texas, and Hope, Idaho, cultivating a career that spans sculpture, painting, and printmaking since the early 1980s. She earned a BS in art education at the University of Houston and, after a decade of teaching, returned to complete her MFA in 1981 under the guidance of John Alexander and James Surls. Friendships with artists Edward and Nancy Reddin Kienholz informed the haunting, liminal qualities of her sculptural work, which often balances between life and death. In her prints, expressive textures, vibrant color, and symbolic imagery—frequently featuring animals as human stand-ins, including the Peruvian Hairless dog she breeds—create intimate, allegorical narratives.

Kopriva’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally at institutions including the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Menil Collection; The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans; and The National Museum of Peru in Lima. Through Vigilant and her broader body of work, she continues to explore the delicate interplay of life, death, and renewal, creating images that resonate with both immediacy and enduring symbolic power.