Andrew Anderson was born in Mexico City to an American father and a Panamanian mother. Anderson's family fostered his creative personality; before starting grade school he had explored the techniques of watercolor and acrylic paints.
After living in both Puerto Rico and San Antonio, Anderson moved just west of Houston as a teenager. At the age of sixteen, while he was experimenting with photorealism, Andrew first visited The Rothko Chapel. He felt the emotional potential of abstraction and appreciated Rothko's use of minimalism without sacrificing extraordinary effects. Anderson began to work with oil paint as a new medium in which to experiment with a new aesthetic.
Andrew utilizes a reductive aesthetic in his art. Stark color fields are the basis for his paintings, which are formed of multiple planes with depth. He creates a language of color and form which invites the viewer to draw connections between elements in his paintings. In contrast to the overstimulation inherent in pop art and contemporary culture, Anderson's minimalist paintings create spaces of emptiness for contemplation.
Andrew Anderson received a Bachelor of Fine Arts with an emphasis in painting from The University of Texas at Austin. He has since established himself as a promising artist in Austin. In 2007, Anderson was one of 39 artists selected to exhibit his work in the Texas Biennial, a juried exhibition of Texas artists working in a variety of media. He was also featured recently in the Southeast States volume of American Art Collector, a juried competition published on a quarterly basis.
Of his paintings, he says:
"When a viewer observes a subjective image they tend to try to relate to it. To achieve this they conjure up past experiences or images. When recognizable images are eliminated the viewer is left to decipher the subject on more fundamental terms: 'What are these colors doing to me?' or 'How are these elements affecting me?' Often, a viewer needs to 'let go' to be able to ask these questions, a process that entails eliminating/surrendering/releasing all the noise in a viewer's life- all the outside stimuli from one's complex past. This noise clouds the comprehension and interpretation of the visual language. This visual language is a universal one that transcends time, space, and culture. Its vocabulary bonds all people together. It unifies us as intelligent visual creatures. This true language can unite the human condition. To accomplish this, you need to be attentive, listening to your DNA and not your mind. In other words, you must comprehend what your nature tells you. Not until you block outside stimulus and truly surrender yourself to your own body can you listen to the language of colors and form. I hope my work functions to invigorate the curiosity of my viewers to explore the language of their own bodies."
