Andrew Race: A Spirit of Play
Born and raised in suburban Wisconsin, Andrew Race is a contemporary artist and art educator living and working in Brooklyn, NY. Race creates his colorful and imaginative compositions by taking snapshots of everyday life and collaging them together with found photos, text, and pastel drawing, and painting resulting in bold, playful pieces that evoke the nostalgia of childhood.
How did your creative journey begin?
As a child I loved collecting and arranging markers, pens and colored pencils of all kinds and colors - even more than using them, just looking at them was a real pleasure for me. My parents put me in some art classes as a kid and I recognize now that drawing and coloring was my first love.
Where do you find inspiration for your work?
I have always drawn inspiration first and foremost from permanent and temporary living spaces, and the people and things that populate them. I love finding and collecting trinkets and toys, which I use to stage vignettes - not unlike a child playing with a dollhouse or a box of miscellaneous toys - that anchor many of my paintings.
In terms of how I approach my work, my main inspiration is my students. I have been a public school teacher for 17 years, teaching kindergarten students with special needs for the majority of that time, and they bring a spirit of fun and freedom to everything they do, especially their artistic creations. My students are able to access their environments and imaginations with a real directness that is totally undiluted, Like so many children I have worked with, I favor a bold and creative use of color before I can even conceive of any particular subject matter or theme.
How has your work evolved over the last few years?
When I began making art again about 8 years ago, I was mainly painting in an abstract expressionist style, because that is what I was drawn to in museums. In the beginning it was just about putting paint to canvas and moving and generating a genuine practice of some sort. With further exploration, I've been more attracted to combining concrete images (things the mind and eye can pick out fairly readily) with ambiguous shapes and forms, with cohesive yet surprising color choices. Currently I keep a folder of images, without any particular intention of how they will be combined or represented in my work, and then see how the subconscious brings them into play with whatever I am working on.
What does a typical day in the studio look like for you, and how has your art practice grown or changed?
I am fortunate to have a studio in my apartment in Brooklyn, which has been a big change for me since moving out of my old place four years ago, where I was essentially painting in a hallway. Working in a larger space with incredible light (two large windows facing an open field) has also allowed me to work on a bigger scale and actually step back and see the work! Living with my work is very important to me, because my paintings are shaped by my domestic environment: the light coming through the window at various points in the day, the shadows on the wall, the objects I collect and place in vignettes around the apartments - the comforts of my domestic space and ultimately my interior life. I need to be in touch with those things in order to paint them. Now I am also much more willing and able to use technological tools like a projector and image editing apps to collage and color assorted images. For a long time I was such a luddite but I've come to see the utility in being able to manipulate images at the touch of a screen at any point in my day.
Which experiences have impacted your work as an artist?
More than anything, I think traveling always changes how I see myself and my work. I find little souvenirs everywhere I go - and it doesn't need to be far - and very often they begin to come to life in my mind and then my sketches and then my paintings. Any time I am away from my apartment for more than 48 hours, I'm able to come back and see my domestic space, my belongings, and ultimately my work in a different light. Being able to see things anew can be so difficult, but it's so important for me to access the ability to look at whatever it is I'm working on with fresh eyes, so that some of that newness can filter into new pieces, or into pieces that have not been resolved.
How has social media impacted your work?
Over the last few years, as sharing my work and connecting with other artists, galleries, organizations, etc. has become more of a priority to me, Instagram has been a no-brainer - even though it took me a long time to join the club.
How does your work in the public school system impact your art?
Because I have worked with children for many years now, a spirit of play has come to define so much of my artistic process. If "play" can be loosely defined as any self-directed activity with no predetermined endpoint or outcome, then my paintings are exactly that.
Website: www.andrewrace.com
Instagram: @andrewraceart