Mabon

Andrew Hardwick (b. 1961)
Andrew Hardwick’s often large scale,
sedimentary paintings display his captivation
with ever decreasing wilderness zones; both
natural and man-made. Playing with and
subverting traditional notions of romantic
landscape painting and the sublime. The
paintings often depict edge-land zones
around big industrial conurbations or ports,
such as large-scale car storage compounds,
redundant factories and polluted waste
lands. Other works draw inspiration from
the more typically idyllic locations such as
Dartmoor and Bodmin Moor. However, these
landscapes are also filled with reminders
of human interference. Roads criss-cross
the moor in deeply scratched lines, a
narrow road is etched into an otherwise
massive moorland triptych, likewise a real
car radiator sits in the surface of another
painting as if decaying and buried by
the earth. His medium of working is also
atypical, paintings are heavily layered with
different types of paint (often sourced
from recycling centres), plaster, plastics,
soils, pigments, roofing felt, hay and
other unconventional materials. To this
rich surface relevant artefacts are often
added, creating reminders, triggering
memories or reflecting fears intrinsic to
a particular landscape. The concept of
layering in the landscape arrived partly
a result of the artist’s childhood, during
which his family’s farm was first sliced
in half by the M5 motorway and then
again by the Royal Portbury Dock. The
land once filled with sheep has become a
pure edge-land wilderness with detritus
of continuous development now occupying
and obliterating the land. Hardwick’s
entire oeuvre makes reference to concepts
of change, memory, history, emotion and
transience. Ever redolent is the notion that
we are but another layer in time.
Andrew Hardwick is a British artist born
in Bristol, England in 1961 where he still
resides. He achieved an MA in Fine Art at
the University of Wales. He is an elected
Academician at the Royal West of England
Academy. He has featured in four solo
exhibitions at Anima Mundi. Works have
been exhibited extensively including
numerous public shows and have been
collected worldwide.
‘Gorse Bush & Wilderness’
mixed media on panel, 25 x 30 cm
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