Andrew Swarbrick
Andrew is a multi award winning tattoo artist with a career spanning 18 years, working in NZ, Australia, USA , UK, Canada and China, he frequently travels to work and exhibit. His paintings have been exhibited and sold in NZ, Australia, Canada, the UK and USA. He has also taught painting workshops in both NZ and Australia to professionals and amateurs alike.
His work is an exploration of mental and existential states, conveying mood and story with the striking images of his imagination. His heavy use of symbolism in the surreal worlds he creates only adds to the layers of these multi-faceted works. Ranging from the fun, playful and mundane, which can be enjoyed as merely striking images, or as deeply layered visions to be explored as oceans of existentialism, spirituality and humanism. Working in a limited palette gives a cohesive theme to his varied works as radically different pieces, over a range of subject matter are stories told with the same 4 colour alphabet, and like the simple 4 letters of DNA are combined to create an almost infinite range of beauty and complexity.
In his words.. “ It is my attempt to communicate with the outside world what I have going on internally at any given time. Sometimes I really struggle with life, and my art is my way of dealing with the thought processes I have. It is sometimes a difficult place to be, in my head, and the thought of doing any art can seem repulsive. I have a somewhat dysfunctional relationship with my creativity it can be painful, the thought of letting it out, or letting anyone see in, and my latest attempts at painting are representative of where I am in my journey of finding the joy and playfulness in my art again, remembering why I spent so much time obsessing as a child, honing my skills creating fantastical worlds to exist in. Art was where I would go to cope, to escape from my reality, and I want it to fill me with energy again, rather than merely holing up a painful mirror, to make it once again cathartic and joyous.”
He regularly shows progress videos and pictures on his Instagram instagram.com/LHPANDY
Andrew currently lives with his family on a small farm in North Canterbury where he paints in a shed that is too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer, but it has great views :D..
