Andrew Hardy is a painter who grew up in Derbyshire and now lives and works in London. After a long career as a creative director, he now devotes himself full-time to painting. In 2019 he graduated from Camberwell College of Arts with a BA (Hons) Painting (1st Class). During 2020 he had a studio at Turps Art School, London which provides an alternative educational environment at master's degree level for postgraduate painters. His association with Turps Art School continues.
Influenced by 20th century abstract modernist painters, Andrew’s work uses an abstract language to explore materiality, repetition, gesture and chance. When painting, he is occupied with the physicality of the process, connecting with his materials, tools and surfaces in different ways. The process is a form of performance. It is about the act of painting and he sees each finished work as a record of the journey he has been on with it.
The question of content is not in the foreground. The paintings are their own subject matter.
The painter says of his work, "I try to make paintings that draw viewers in, to question and enjoy their materiality and to find their own associations. I don’t feel any urge to depict things or tell stories or make statements. I don’t feel a need to paint scenes, situations or likenesses of people, or to be referential whether literal, stylised, imagined or metaphorical. The works don’t usually have any meaning although I do aim for them to be meaningful… which is a different thing.”
Andrew has exhibited in London and Paris and his paintings can be found in private collections in Europe and the US.
