Artist Statement

I have long been interested in how the mind works, so it is not surprising that the subjects informing most of my abstract art would be philosophy of mind and cognitive science. In particular, my recent paintings deal with the embodied mind, a contemporary theory of mind which says that the way we think about the world is directly shaped by the physical nature of our bodies and that our abstract reasoning processes are largely metaphorical.

For example, the colors we see are due to the pigmentation in our eyes as well as the neural structure of our brain. We generally think of vision as being like photography, where an entire image is presented to us at once. However, vision might better be compared -- surprisingly -- to the sense of touch, since it is only through the continuous probing and movement of our eyes that we are able to construct the world around us.

My paintings are born through a deliberative process that consists of thousands of individual brushstrokes applied one at a time. These marks are reminiscent of the mazes I drew as a child and they are also "brainy," which is appropriate for this series and also for my own personality. The "mazes" represent paths and interconnections (for these drawings do not "dead end", and all paths interconnect) and they provide a structure in which to explore perceptual effects and the interaction of color.

In applying color, I strive to create an interplay between underpainting and mark making, between foreground and background, between warm and cool, and between light and dark. My paintings draw from color theory in order to create a sense of depth that belies the generally flat surfaces (though in many works the brushstrokes of multiple layers of marks are visible). I hope to create paintings where the viewer will want to keep looking, from near and afar, in different lights, always finding something new to stimulate the eye and the mind.

-Andrew Werth