Andy Stewart - Truth. Time. Matter.

About

Haunting, evocative and fizzing with hedonism, Andy Stewart's remarkable new exhibition ‘Truth. Time. Matter.', takes the visitor on a stroll, with Stewart as his amiable guide, to the frontier where the spirituality of man encounters the vast, fearful magnificence of the universe and the laws which govern it. The title 'Truth.Time.Matter.' directly relates to the conception of his paintings. Time correlates to the artist recalling painting throughout art history, not only from the major US and British abstract painters of the 20th century but to the sublime and exaggerated terrains of Casper Friedrich David (1774 - 1840), which humbled the viewers eye to the terrifying yet awe-inspiring natural world. Stewart also looks further back in art history, using wisps of spray paint in his backgrounds to emulate the rolling clouds frothing around mountainscapes in early Japanese landscape painting. Matter is the physical stuff of Stewart's painting itself; he continues to explore an experimental and intuitive use of materials. By laying the canvases on the floor, the artist tips and sways the stretcher to move the paint, bringing dynamic life and energetic motion to his work. He subsequently builds the canvas up through a series of pours, drips, throws and splatters using acrylic, gloss paint, diamond dust and glitter.