Being aware of both the medium and the content distinguishes artists from both engineers and consumers; being able to unilaterally change the goals as a work progresses distinguishes artists from tradesmen; being able to imagine new or impossible goals distinguishes artists from machines; pursuing those content-plus-medium, illusive, new or impossible goals distinguishes this artist from wiser people.
My experience of the mundane is peppered with moments of beauty, surprise, fascination and elegant simplicity. I try in my art to reach out for one of these moments and by working to recreate it I begin to understand it, to wash away the unnecessary and leave the essence of the experience, to uncover, refine and present it. My personal, most basic measure of the success of a work of art is: Is the result what the artist intended? Each of my works may start out like a sober effort to explain an opium dream but by constantly adapting the medium and content, and by making countless leaps of faith toward impossible goals, I have found that I can usually intend the result.
Story
Born in London in 1967 to two artists, Claude Andrew dropped out of a university degree in artificial intelligence to become an assistant accountant in the London reinsurance market. Visiting his brother, Felix, at his job coding for a software company in Redmond, WA, Claude realized that mistakes had been made. He went back to school in London, earning a degree in computer science from UCL and took a job with the same software company. Claude's spare time, such as it was, was spent painting and taking various art classes which pathologically developed into leaving software behind and taking a BFA at Cornish College of the Arts. On the way in to school, sculpture had appeared to Claude to be an add-on to the visual arts, like music stands are to an orchestra; on the way out, Claude once again realized that mistakes had been made. Claude builds representational sculptures, albeit not the literal representation that photography has taught us to expect: what is replicated is a moment, a sensation, a motion rather than an appearance. Working out of a studio in Seattle, he uses whatever media and technologies are necessary to achieve each piece, an undertaking made possible not only by the degrees in both fine art and computer science but also a childhood exposure to an encyclopedic array of arts and crafts (literally: his mother published an encyclopedia of arts and crafts).
Facts
Name
• Usual: Claude Andrew
Contact
• claude@bronzenose.com
• http://bronzenose.com
Education
• 2008 BFA Cornish College of the Arts (Seattle, WA, USA). Majors: Sculpture and Painting • 1995 BSc Computer Science, University College London (London, UK). First Class Honors, Prize in Computing. • 1985 Dulwich College (a high school, London, UK)
Curated Exhibitions
• 2009 "The Window Art Project" Madison Park, Seattle, Washington http://www.madartseattle.com • 2008 "Annual West Edge Sculpture Exhibition"
Other Exhibitions
• 2008 BFA Exhibition, Cornish College of the Arts • 2007 Junior Awards Exhibition, Cornish College of the Arts • 2005 Freshman Merit Awards Exhibition, Cornish College of the Arts
Awards
• 2007 Cornish College of the Arts Merit Award • 2005 Cornish College of the Arts Merit Award
Industry Experience
• 2003 1995 Microsoft (later Expedia). Lead Software Design Engineer (5 years); Senior Program Manager (3 years) • 1992 1987 Assistant Accountant in the London reinsurance market
