Iain Andrews
www.iainandrewsart.co.uk
@iainandrewsart
Statement:
It is not possible to be original except on a basis of tradition’ D.W.Winnicott
My paintings begin as a dialogue, both with a particular Folk Tale and also with an image from art history – often a painting by an Old Master that may then be used as a starting point from which to playfully but reverently deviate. I am interested in how stories are retold and re-imagined, and how the retelling alters and embellishes the original even as it seeks to render it vital and alive once again for a new audience. Along with this comes a question of how modern developments may be balanced by a dialogue with established traditions and past narratives, and yet not become nostalgic.
The art critic Peter Fuller talks about how, in the past the artist could ‘transform the physically perceived by the manifestation of allegoric devices like haloes and ‘human’ wings, whereas now this can only be realized through the transfiguration of formal means like drawing, colour and touch’. I hope to frustrate the process of recognition through treading a path that plays between the borders of figuration and abstraction, and thus slow down the viewer by creating a space for sensation to emerge.
My works are linked to the narratives and stories that I encounter during my work as an Art Psychotherapist with teenagers, many of whom have tales of neglect and abuse. These stories have very little trouble attaching themselves to the Folk Tales and Faery Stories that I have always been interested in, since the themes of the two; loss and abandonment, the violence of parental figures, oral greed, transformation and renewal, naturally merge into each other.
www.iainandrewsart.co.uk
@iainandrewsart
Statement:
It is not possible to be original except on a basis of tradition’ D.W.Winnicott
My paintings begin as a dialogue, both with a particular Folk Tale and also with an image from art history – often a painting by an Old Master that may then be used as a starting point from which to playfully but reverently deviate. I am interested in how stories are retold and re-imagined, and how the retelling alters and embellishes the original even as it seeks to render it vital and alive once again for a new audience. Along with this comes a question of how modern developments may be balanced by a dialogue with established traditions and past narratives, and yet not become nostalgic.
The art critic Peter Fuller talks about how, in the past the artist could ‘transform the physically perceived by the manifestation of allegoric devices like haloes and ‘human’ wings, whereas now this can only be realized through the transfiguration of formal means like drawing, colour and touch’. I hope to frustrate the process of recognition through treading a path that plays between the borders of figuration and abstraction, and thus slow down the viewer by creating a space for sensation to emerge.
My works are linked to the narratives and stories that I encounter during my work as an Art Psychotherapist with teenagers, many of whom have tales of neglect and abuse. These stories have very little trouble attaching themselves to the Folk Tales and Faery Stories that I have always been interested in, since the themes of the two; loss and abandonment, the violence of parental figures, oral greed, transformation and renewal, naturally merge into each other.
Double Portion (study)
20 X 22cm
Oil on wood
2022
20 X 22cm
Oil on wood
2022