Andrew Gibbs -1
Mystic Future
Preview
Saturday, January 10, 2009 10 am – 5:30 pm
(work subject to prior sale)
Opening Reception
Sunday, January 11, 2009 1 – 5 pm
Elizabeth Ely, harpist; Karel Roessingh, piano
Exhibition continues until January 31, 2009
Andrew Gibbs was born on Vancouver Island (July 9, 1974) and lives in Vancouver, B.C. He graduated from the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design with a degree in Visual Arts in 2004. Since then he has shown his work in Vancouver and on Vancouver Island where he is currently represented by Winchester Galleries.
Being in nature sets my imagination and spirit free to travel. Within this fertile terrain I am drawn to certain forms, qualities of light and darkness, movement and rhythm which later serve as places of departure for my paintings. I have been developing a language of symbols, both personal and appropriated, which allow me to express a raw and immediate sense of feeling through their gesture and inherent associations.
Sometimes I incorporate seed pods, leaves, pine needles, twigs, earth plaster and other organic material into the surface of the paint to give the work a more natural feeling. Layer upon layer of paint is applied in complex systems of mark making. I never know quite where a painting is going when I’m working on it. The surface of the painting seems to function like a theatrical space where entities, energies and forms arrive to enact dramas and establish engaging relationships.
In an alchemical process two separate substances meet and intermingle and something entirely new is born. I have experienced in the unconscious an intuitive energy which, through the act of painting, manifests in forms of expression which seem to carry powerful psychic and emotional impact. My most recent paintings reflect my desire to explore this alchemy and magic through a marriage of abstraction and representation.