Andrew Maher, United Kingdom
Andrew Maher is a Manchester born, London-based writer and painter. He studied at the Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, under Daniel Richter and Kirsi Mikkola, and is now working towards his Fine Arts degree at Central Saint Martins.
Andrew’s practice consists of experimentation with scriptwriting, character building, and the surrounding, to then paint a still image from what has been imagined to be a 30-second take. Taking a director’s role but in the medium of painting, Andrew is particularly interested in storytelling. As a result the work resembles more of Del Toro’s definition of “world-scaping” in which there is the use of theatre and film techniques to create a platform for which these stories can live in. The challenges that are being faced within this approach of the painting format are sitting uncomfortably between disciplines, attaching the artist to subjects and problems that normally belong to other mediums, moving them temporarily into a space of ambiguity. Story-telling plays a vital part in a community’s bond. Joseph Campbell states that there are four main functions of mythology/stories, the mystical function, the cosmological function, the sociological function, and the pedagogical function. It is the latter, that has been the focus of Andrew's on-going practice and research plan, by using the crit group as a metadiscourse to form a community that grows, evolves and eventually dismantles. As an emerging artist, Andrew’s work has been included in the acclaimed Rundgang show and an exhibition at Dessous studio in Vienna. |