Fields and Gardens. Andy Black

Andy Black is an emerging artist whose practice, although immersed within the centrality of drawing, is constantly pushing its parameters. There is an interest in the affinities between drawing and writing. To quote the artist: “I have drawings of around a hundred forms collected together in a small book. Some of these forms are objects from the landscape – trees, bushes, rocks, mountains, lakes. Some are sharp-edged and geometric or more amorphous and blobby. Others are reminiscent of topiary or architecture. All the forms are real in that they obey gravity and are rooted to the ground. These forms (to steal Philip Guston’s idea) are my alphabet. Also in this book are drawings that have a different function. They are diagrams of how to organize the pictures (plot, island, field, glade, parterre) – the syntax of an open-ended series of drawings.”

Andy will make a drawing installation for the gallery as well as works on paper. There is immediacy in this approach, despite the large scale and monumental quality of what he depicts. The imagery is painted directly onto the gallery walls and has the energy of being ‘live”. The imagery is inventive and compositionally imaginative. Strong sculptural forms are painted that are cartoon-like and suggest all kinds of associations – e.g. body parts, vegetables, fruit, clumsy artefacts, archeological ruins etc. The environmental aspect of his work draws the viewer in but it also evokes displacement.

image: Andy Black  Garden 2