Beltane

Andy Harper (b. 1971)
Andy Harper’s intricate oil paintings deal
with the fruits of labour in the shadow of
uncertainty. On one side they are concerned
with the immediate process of painting, the
mechanical, almost automated act of laying
down mark after mark on a wet surface. On
the other hand, they are subject to longterm
strategy, each mark developed over
time and embedded into a composition that
provides an architectural structure for the
work. While this framework may be logically
ordered, the marks themselves are organic
entities, forming a broad visual library that
has taken on a life its own, growing through
repetition and recombination in each new
work. The paintings act like a Petri-dish for
the culturing of this visual language, and a
greenhouse for its cultivation. The forms may
seem organic, but upon closer inspection
they are not specific to anything the natural
world has to offer. Rather they appear
as a synthetic form of nature, generated
from compulsive repetition and subjective
reinterpretation, a world that has somehow
evolved beyond the point of progeny to
become its own independent alien entity.
Andy Harper lives in St Just, the most
westerly town in Cornwall and works from a
studio at the renowned Porthmeor Studios
in St Ives. He studied his BA in Fine
Art: Painting & Printmaking at Brighton
Polytechnic and then MA Fine Art: Painting
at the Royal College of Art, London. In
1996, with some peers from the RCA, Harper
co-founded NotCut which ran a studio and
photographic darkroom in London and
curated ‘Lightness & Weight’ in Birmingham.
During this time he also studied part time
at Middlesex University for an MA in Visual
Culture and had his first solo exhibition
in London in 1998. After attending the
Braziers International Artist Workshop in
2000, Harper became a member of the
organising committee until 2008. Harper
has taught in many institutions nationally
and internationally, and had teaching posts
at Central St. Martins, The City Lit and
is currently a Senior Lecturer on the
MFA Fine Art programme at Goldsmiths,
University of London. Harper has exhibited
widely in Europe, North America and
South Korea.
AC
oil on canvas, 200 x 200 cm
32