Artist’s Statement
In my practice I seek to explore those ‘in-between’ areas that mark the boundaries within our world. These edges might be physical, such as the littoral place where sea meets land, or a metaphysical edge, the liminal point where place turns to space; the dividing line between where you are and where you could be.
These concepts of Space and Place have long been the subject of enquiry of both philosophers and artists. The transition between the here and the there may mark the boundary between the known and the unknown, between the safe and the insecure and between the present and the future. Landscape art has traditionally sought to portray this by representing the view of the space surrounding a place, but maybe the principal boundary is that between the self and the outer, the point where person meets place and how that interaction is recorded by our senses, but also how that interaction changes both person and place. This change works on an individual level but also on a collective level. We live in a world that is constantly changing and that change is more and more being driven by the actions of the human race, by our personal actions and our collective actions.
I have been using an ontological approach to my work to investigate the physical elements that go to make up the fabric of a place, exploring the found landscapes that contain us or may be contained by us in the palm of a hand. Walking the landscape, allowing images and patterns to make themselves known to me has become a central part of my practice. There is a point of intersection between the geological timescale of the creation and movement of a single pebble and the brief moment of my being at the same point, and in this instant a work of art may be conceived. The creation of one object from another through the interpretation of marks using the medium of paint is the process by which part of my self becomes combined with part of the Place. That point of intersection also creates a location in Space defining the visible landscape that surrounds it. As Yi-Fu Tuan puts it:
“… if we think of space as that which allows movement, then place is pause; each pause in movement makes it possible for location to be transformed into place” (Tuan, 2011, p. 6)
Tuan, Y.-F., 2011. Space and place: the perspective of experience, 7. print. ed. Univ. of Minnesota Press, Minneapolis, Minn.
Howard N. Andrews – Artistic CV
Born 1956 in Coventry, West Midlands, UK
Lives and works in Cambridge, UK
Personal Statement:
My work centres around a fascination with what makes a place seem unique, what defines it and how art can be used to capture this essence of place and how what we think of as a place relates to the space around it. Where are the boundaries? How does the surrounding landscape help to define the feelings that one has about a particular location? How closely can we ‘zoom in’ before the notion of place becomes meaningless, and are there any physical attributes that exist outside the mental picture that we all create when we think of a place?
This notion of place not only encompasses the spatial elements that define location but must also include a recognition of the dimension of time. The very material that builds a place is constantly changing at rates that vary between the moment of observation and the geological time of the earth itself. The intersection point of these time frames becomes a memory that builds with others to create what we think of as a place.
My paintings are therefore a representation of those elements that I feel best represent the feelings and memories that go to create my own experience of being in a place.
Upcoming exhibition:
17 – 23/5/2023 – SHINGLE joint exhibition of painting and photography with Linda Mayoux
Ballroom Arts, Aldeburgh, Suffolk, UK
Previous exhibitions:
2012 – 2017: Annual Art Exhibitions, Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge
2010: Exhibition in support of Wintercomfort for the Homeless, Six Bells, Cambridge
Projects:
2008 – 2020: Founded and ran Cambridge Life Artists Group (CLAG) to provide monthly life drawing sessions for local artists in and around Cambridge.
Education:
1976 – 1979 BSc. (Hons) Electronic Engineering, The City University, London
2008 – 2011 BA (Hons) Humanities and Art History, The Open University
2011 – present BA (Hons) Painting, The Open College of the Arts
Short courses:
2022 Joan Eardley: Land Sea and People, St Ives School of Painting.
2021 Abstracting Zennor in Autumn, St Ives School of Painting.
2021 The Thick and the Thin of it: Painting the Ocean, St Ives School of Painting.
2021 Simply Oils, Norfolk Painting School
2020 Sketch into Painting, St Ives School of Painting. (online)
2019 Artist’s Retreat Week, St Ives School of Painting.
2019 Contemporary Landscape, St Ives School of Painting.
2019 Abstracting the Figure in Paint, St Ives School of Painting.