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Andrew Litten (b. 1970)Andrew Litten’s dynamic and gesturalfigurative paintings express a stronginterest in the universal complexity ofeveryday existence. Dealing with humanisticthemes such as love, sensuality, fear,anger, loss, nostalgia, mundanity, personalgrowth and perceived identity normalityor disturbance. Works are created with anunguarded, empathetic attitude, like somany expressionistic artists, a rawness ofapproach combined with an often viscousapplication of paint is also key to the extremeexperience felt from the work. Gesture andnuance inspire extreme emotive reading,perhaps subversive, tender, passionate,ambivalent, malevolent or compassionate,our response becomes one of allureor repulsion.Andrew Litten is a British artist, born inAylesbury, Buckinghamshire in 1970. Hecurrently works from his studio in Fowey,Cornwall. He is a self-taught artist leavingart college as a teenager having foundit to be too restrictive to his aspiredmethod of working. For a decade he createdmostly small-scale works using humbledomestic or found materials (includingenvelopes and assembled furniture parts).The work made at this time deliberatelychallenged ideas of art elitism and art ascommodity. He then moved to Cornwallin 2001 and chose to begin exhibiting.Early success came when his work wasincluded in an exhibition titled ‘Nudes’ inNew York City, (along with Jacob Epsteinand Pierre-Auguste Renoir), where hiswork was highlighted and reviewed by theNew York Times. Shortly after he had fourconsecutive solo exhibitions at GoldifshFine Arts in Penzance, Cornwall. Othernotable exhibitions included ‘Move’ at VynerStreet, London, during Frieze Art Week2007, where his work ‘Dog Breeder’, createdas a twisted and emphatic anti-art statement,was exhibited. He was also included in ‘NoSoul For Sale’ at Tate Modern Turbine Hall,London in 2010. In 2012 he held a majorsolo exhibition at Millennium in St Ives,Cornwall and that year was given a guestsolo exhibition at L13 Light IndustrialWorkshop, London. He has also held largescalesolo exhibitions at Spike Island andMotorcade FlashParade in Bristol. ‘OrdinaryBodies, Ordinary Bones’ was conceived withsupport from The Arts Council, UK andwas exhibited at Anima Mundi in 2018.Works have been included in numerousinternational curated mixed exhibitionsin Berlin, Dublin, Siena, Milwaukee andNew York City and in Venice during the54th Biennale. Most recently paintings havebeen exhibited in four major museums inChina. Andrew Litten paintings featurein numerous international private andpublic collections.‘Nurture’oil on canvas, 90 x 80 cm93