Guest of Honor

THE SUMMER 2026 GUEST OF HONOR IS BRIAN REGO

BIOGRAPHY

Born in 1980, Santa Clara, CA, USA.

Brian Rego received his BFA in Painting at the University of South Carolina after being selected for the Ed Yaghjian Award for Distinguished Undergraduate Work in 2004. By 2007, he received hisMFA in Painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, where he encountered painters who shared his interest in observational painting. Rego soon co-founded a painting collective appropriately named “Perceptual Painters” to continue working, exhibiting, and teaching through this community of painters. Over the past 18 years, Rego has taught concepts and approaches in painting at multiple institutions, including the University of South Carolina, the University of Mississippi, Art New England, and the Mt. Gretna School of Art. He currently teaches at the College of Charleston.

In his work, Rego employs invention, memory, and the sense of sight, utilizing components from the landscape and the figure to make his paintings. Rego has been featured in the book “Art in the Making: Essays by Artists About What They Do” and has been recognized as an artist of high achievement in observational painting through the prestigious Blackwell Prize in Painting from the University of West Georgia. Rego is represented by Evoke Contemporary in Santa Fe, NM, and Carver Hill Gallery in Camden, MN. He resides and works in Charleston, South Carolina.