Statement

Informed as much by his training as a psychoanalyst as his life-long engagement with art, Andrew Bryant’s work circles around questions of fantasy, dependency and lack, subtly blending the narcissism of wishful thinking with the disappointment of experience.

Gathering resources from books and internet searches, Andrew transforms found photographs into detailed and seductive monochrome oil paintings. Whether it is engineless toy planes, shelves bolted to the floor, or empty and static trolleys, Andrew’s subjects appear lacking or disabled. Flimsy, inadequate—or simply stuck—they yearn for the completion of their function. His images invariably contain a component of staging and framing—of conscious presentation—a reference to the practice of painting itself which, as a form of address, requires a viewer, and so is equally wanting.

Spending months on a single painting, the lengths to which Andrew goes in pursuit of flawlessness are excessive. However this is no senseless striving for perfection. In its very failure it articulates gesturally the central paradox of his work, namely the potentiality of artistic/human desire and the illusiveness of its fulfilment. 

Andrew was born in the UK in 1971 and lives and works in Cornwall. His work is in private collections in the UK and abroad.

Education

  • 2021 One Year Mentoring, Newlyn School of Art

  • 2012 MFA Fine Art, Goldsmiths, University of London

  • 2001 Post Graduate Diploma Narrative Writing, University of Derby

  • 1996 BA (1st class hons) Photographic Studies, University of Derby

  • 1992 BTEC Foundation in Art and Design, Tresham College, Kettering

Awards and bursaries

  • 2021 Shortlisted for Wells Art Contemporary

  • 2021 Newlyn School of Art, One Year Mentoring Bursary

  • 2021 Long-listed for Jackson’s Painting Prize

  • 2000 ACE creative writing bursary, Arts Council England

  • 1995 Exchange Scholarship, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Jerusalem

  • 1993 Winner, best use of alternative media, Leicester Picture House Artists Book Prize

Selected exhibitions

  • 2022 Unstable Monuments, Bristol

  • 2022 Rhizome, Tremenheere Gallery, Gulval

  • 2022 Group show, Chapel House, Penzance

  • 2021 In the Shadow of the Object (solo exhibition), Dust: The Art of Grief, Penzance

  • 2021 Wells Art Contemporary, Wells

  • 2018 Open Studio, Old Bakery Studios, Truro

  • 2016 Open Studios, Old Press, St. Austell

  • 2012 Q-Art, APT Gallery, London

  • 2011 Skin Job (curator), Core Gallery, London

  • 2010 The Eighteenth Emergency (curator), Core Gallery, London

  • 2010 Q-Art, Matt Roberts Gallery, London

  • 2010 Presequel (curator), Goldsmiths College, London

  • 2010 B-sides, Goldsmiths College, London

  • 2007 Total Image Nation, Chocolate Factory, London

  • 2007 Illuminations with (Carol Marin-Pache), My Life in Art, London

  • 2003 Punctuation Marks, Leicester City Gallery

  • 2003 You Are Here, various venues, Nottingham

  • 2001 This is Not Home (solo show), Q Studios, Derby

  • 2000 Turning the Page (winner: Best alternative media artist’s book prize), Picture House Gallery, Leicester

  • 1999 Intimate Land (solo show), Big Blue Cafe Gallery, Derby

  • 1999 Cracking Up, Pink House, Nottingham

  • 1997 Notes in Passing, Picture House Gallery, Leicester

  • 1997 Young Photographers, Montage Gallery, Derby

  • 1993 Two Photographers, Picture House Gallery, Leicester

Published writing

  • 2013 Birds of a Feather, a-n Magazine, April 2013

  • 2012 A Good Blog, a-n Magazine Jan 2012

  • 2011 Artists Talking… Talking, a-n Magazine Nov 2011

  • 2010 The Teaching and Learning of Art; or How to Avoid Being Eaten by a Giraffe, Esferapública Columbia, June 2010 (first appeared in Q-Art London, 2009 and Hit and Miss 3, 2009)

  • 2009 Why Professional Artists Need a Blog, a-n June 2009

  • 2008 Artists Talking — Internationally, a-n magazine September 2008

  • 2008 The Show Must Go On, a-n magazine July/August 2008