A retrospective
Widely known for her expressive abstract paintings, Lois Main Templeton has been an active and influential figure in the Indiana visual arts landscape for nearly 40 years. Lois is a gifted painter, an author, community pioneer and groundbreaking arts activist.
At age 49, Lois enrolled in the Herron School of Art, and built on her earlier training at Cañada College in the San Francisco Bay area. After graduating from Herron School of Art in 1981, Lois began to gain her foothold as an abstract painter. Even in her earliest works, multidimensional surfaces and gestural mark making capture your attention and encourage you to take a closer look.
Lois rented her first studio space in the Faris Building, a seven-story low-rise industrial building in downtown Indy that would serve as a haven for artists, architects and designers until it closed in 1999. She began to exhibit frequently in commercial galleries and appear in regional museum shows.
Lois’ pioneering spirit extended beyond her studio walls, the local art scene—and even the field of painting. A passionate writer, Lois has a unique style of journaling that reveals the routine and psyche of a working artist. She integrates words onto her canvases, too, blending two forms of creative expression in her own unique way.
In 2008, she collaborated with her studio mate and fellow artist Phil O’Malley to publish “Who Makes the Sun Rise?”—a children’s picture book that features Lois’ art.
For 40 years, Lois has contributed to the city of Indianapolis and the state of Indiana as a painter, a teacher and a cultural pioneer with a force-of-nature attitude and the gumption to bring her ideas to life. As she celebrates her 90th year, Lois continues to paint and write with vigor and purpose.
March 10, 2018 through July 29, 2018
Supported by
