Using the computer as a common medium, Andrews digital pieces explore time, space and reverie, and, often integrate music/ sound.Kerry John Andrews has been working in various media since the early 1980 s and particularly in digital and musical/sound forms throughout the 90 s. He originally studied visual art at the Ruskin School Oxford and at Goldsmiths College, since then he has studied the practice and theory of music, as well as graphic imaging computer programmes.
As an inter-disciplinary digital artist and composer, Andrews current practice is focused upon constructing work that has no single medium, but transfers ideas across forms and languages, creating pieces that reside outside their physical forms. An exploration of time and space through stillness and non-linearity, as well as a keen interest in contemporary physics are central to these works.
Andrews often has people in mind when composing, but no-one is more explicitly prominent in these works than Andrea Fisher, a close friend and colleague who died two years ago. As an artist, her work dealt with forms of delicacy and brutality - eroticism and desire as well as war imagery and severe iconic American minimalism. She was a lecturer at Goldsmiths College and curator/author of an exhibition/catalogue of American women photographers.
Andrews initial creative response to her premature death was a short semi-graphic score entitled For Andrea. It is based on a short section of text and four notes from ëTehillimí by Steve Reich, a piece of music which Andrea loved. Essentially, For Andrea is a simple duet comprising of a male and female voice, whereby, contrary to expectation, tonal range and vocal difference is abridged.
For Andrea has proved a seminal work evolving into a more complex, lengthy piece consisting of four parts. A solo soprano piece leading directly into the duet, the third part requiring four voices and the last 16 or more. Andrews explores the concert space through his singers, whose placement informs the formal structure of his digital semi-graphic scores.
The images and text which make up ëFor Andreaí (section 4) are taken from her catalogue ëlet us now Praise famous Womení. Andrews has studied her theoretical writing and her fascination with one image in particular, the photograph by Marjory Collins entitled Sleeping in a car on a Sunday in Rock Creek Park. Washington DC (1942).
It is her exploration, her look upon it, which Andrews is examining in the work.
Andrews is not appropriating and manipulating the legacy of Fisher and Reich in order to subjugate or personally gain. He sources other producersí work in order to enter a common dialogue, by which to delve into their sensibilities, and, ultimately, investigate the sociology and making of art. When friends are involved however the stakes are high.
For :(to) Andrews installation will premiere the maturation of the For Andrea duet through electronic sound which traverses the tonal similarity and timbral differences of the voices as well as the rythmic structures of the text and images.
The exhibition focuses on 4 related digital print works, ranging from a single image/text piece (Versus) through the vertical triptych For Andrea (section 4) and the diptych Bloom to a 7 metre long wall installation comprised of 15 light pieces with electronic sound field study 1.
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