Individual residencies / Olot
ANDREW SMITH
From Monday, 22 November 2021 to Thursday, 2 December 2021
Bio
Andrew Smith has recently participated in the International Painting Symposium Mark Rothko at the Rothko Centre, Daugavpils, Latvia during September 2021. He is a Wales based painter working consistently with colour by means of exhibition projects (Colour Equilibrium 2018) and exploring cultural contexts by establishing exchange links with international partners (most recently, Poland, Australia and India 2018 to 2019). Andrew has worked on public art projects and commissions exploring colour in terms of location and scale (Barry 2009, Cardiff 2010, Russia 2011 and Llandudno 2019). His curated projects include Re/take Re/invent (2016) funded by Arts Council of Wales. In 2018, Andrew was AiR at Sauerbier House, South Australia for three months, supported by Wales Arts International. His most recent residency was in North East India followed by a tour of Madhya Pradesh with an exhibition at Alliance Français de Bhopal and this experience informs current practice. As an educator, he has taught throughout his career and until 2017 was Director of Fine Art at Bangor University.
Project
I will be working on a new portfolio of work, drawings and paintings under the theme of colourscapes. Through a desire for more flexible and less structured ways of working, my painting has developed to a fluid and expressive idiom. The idea of non place incorporates both a sense of location and the aim to create an abstract painting. My overarching aim is the continued deconstruction of existing method to forge an abstract painting language encompassing the idea of ‘scape’.
My stay at Faberllull Olot has been remarkably productive. Using dry art materials for drawing including chalks, pastels and oil pastels I have made eight colour works based on my experience of moving around the city on foot and bicycle. The atmosphere of Placa Clara was particularly striking as I felt an enclosed protective environment that I imagine would be shady and protective in hot summer months and at this time of year, November, was an encompassing and warm place to be. On location I made sketch book drawings and from these and photographs, I was able to create works responding to my impressions, also reflecting on the early winter light that penetrated the glass space of the outside restaurant that was kindly made available as a working space for my residency.
The conversations with my eleven residency peer group was particularly enriching as this was the first residency where I have worked alongside writers, producers, poets and translators and the diversification of issue based conversation expanded horizons.
The residency and support was excellent. For visual art there is so much potential in the rich geographic and cultural location of La Garrotxa. Thank you faberllull.
