About

Virginia Kumpuris is a self-taught figurative painter based in Little Rock, Arkansas. She works extensively in portraiture, drawing from memory, vintage family photos, and everyday life, blending fact with intuition. Faces are her language: she explores emotion, nuance, and the quiet truths of human imperfection.

Kumpuris distorts perspective, introduces surrealist elements, and layers dense patterning to challenge conventional notions of beauty and identity. Women often anchor her work, depicted as complex, dynamic figures in relation to their surroundings. She works on commissions and is developing multiple ongoing series focusing on group portraits, equestrian subjects, and American identity, exploring culture, belonging, and the human experience.

Her practice embraces messiness and unpredictability, creating images that invite viewers to reconsider what is real, meaningful, and human. She has exhibited at Little Rock City Hall, Gallery 26, The Full Moon, and the River Valley Arts Center’s satellite gallery.