AMBER ANDREWS
Name: Amber Andrews
Age: 27
Birthplace: Antwerp, Belgium
Home: Antwerp
Disciplines: Painting and drawing
Double Femininity, 2022, courtesy of Sofie Van de Velde Gallery
What’s usually the starting point of your practice?
For the last 2 years, I had the luck to have several shows, so I was always working towards a show. As it were solo shows, I can create my own world. I like to work around narratives that intrigue me or that I can bend into my own ways of seeing.
When I’m at work, it feels like I’m making a spiderweb that goes in different directions, but everything is connected. Often, I hear sayings that bring me instant visual ideas. Even when I’m having conversations with people, I’m taking notes of things they have said. My iPhone is full of sentences and pictures I don’t want to forget about. When you work with sayings, most people already think to know what it means, but as an artist, you can put totally different meaning to them and give them another layer.
When does your work feel complete?
In a way, it’s never complete. My paintings really need time just like wine, you must open it to become fairy. So it is really time that tells me. If I don’t take it back to work on, it’s !nished. If I keep tending to pick up the painting to paint on it, it’s not !nished.
What are you obsessed with?
These days, I’m obsessed with Kendrick Lamar’s new album and after all the rage, I started to watch Stranger Things which I now understand why there is so much fuzz about. I almost finished the latest season, so I will have to find myself another obsession.
I can also totally obsess about everything I can’t do. I tend to have this urge to want to be able to make everything I want, this real craftsmanship - stained glass, woodworking, pottery, glass blowing...
What are the interactions that you seek between your work and the viewer?
The same interactions I’m having while I’m painting it. I’m always interacting with art history because there is just so much to see and learn from. I have the renaissance always on my back, whilst Picasso and Matisse are poking in my waist, and while I try to move, I still have these impressionists hanging around my leg. So I’m always in this state between the history and the contemporary which brings great duality, and adds more layers and levels of meaning. I don’t want to focus or limit myself to one style.
Besides the work itself, I !nd it interesting to make an experience when you visit the show. Ways to show a painting and the scenery of a space are all contributors to that experience.
What is your commitment, both artistically and personally?
For me, both are intertwined with each other. Being committed to your work is a long road, and it will keep you up at night and you will have to make some sacrifices. Anyhow, these sacrifices will be sensible in your personal life. We have privileges but it can be quite lonely. I think, as an artist, it is important that you can keep that commitment for yourself because if you lose this, it might as well be over.
Who are some of the artists that have been the biggest in!uence
on you?
Fra Angelico, Piero della Francesca, Matisse, Picasso, Rousseau, Picabia, Philip Guston, David Hockney.
Where is the beauty for you today?
Maybe very corny to say but nature keeps doing it for me. There is no better feeling than standing somewhere you can still feel that nature is in control. Maybe I say this because I’m living in Belgium where half of the country is grey with asphalt and every big tree needs to be replaced for another ugly building.