Andrew Beck | Quicksilver
What does it mean to create in a world of such rapid change? What does it mean to create when so much art we consume is through screens? What does it feel like to engage with images through a screen? Where do ideas come from? Are they sourced from the individual or do they exist, out there, in the ether? Andrew Beck's practice holds these questions; not demanding definitive answers, but channelling and examining the evolving ephemeral force of creativity.
Both timeless and contemporary, Andrew's work spans photography, glass, paint and site-specific installation. He explores the shifting relationships between images, objects, and space, alongside the increasingly blurred boundaries between physical and digital realities. Constructed layers of media, including museum glass, silver, acrylic, and photograms coalesce with sharp precision, creating works that are striking when viewed in online photos, but fully immersive when experienced in person. Here lies the crux of Beck's practice: "to make art that can be seen digitally, but is only truly available to people as an experience in physical reality."
Beginning with photography, Andrew Beck's nearly two decade career has seen him push the bounds of the medium. Glass is particularly significant here. Moving beyond its traditional use in photography as a protective layer, Beck is concerned with glass' relationship to light: reflecting, absorbing, and transmitting simultaneously. Contrasting the ubiquitous screens in our lives, Beck's works present glass screens we do not need to touch to connect with. The turn of a head, a cloud obscuring the sun, the colour of the wall, a viewer's clothing, are all minuscule variations that will drastically alter the way Andrew's work presents to you. A single work is at one angle a bright white, at another, a deep magenta, then a dancing blue flame. Though materially static, these images are each universes with logics of their own. They invite us to witness.
In a digital age that demands we absorb information and practice self-surveillance at a speed beyond our natural design, Andrew's works offer light, colour, and story; inviting self-reflection at our own pace.
Andrew Beck's latest exhibition 'Quicksilver' is titled for liquid mercury and is reverential of such states of change. Informed by an alchemic tradition, Beck draws from its philosophy, creating works that speak to the unconscious mind: the familiar and unfamiliar, the imagery that we process without realising. A shadow cast on the ground by an opening door; the breath of light on the wall above the curtains. Andrew's work acknowledges these fragmented images that we see so often but are rarely at the forefront of our busy conscious minds. They call to something in us that is older and quieter. "I think that's what art is about really, it gives you a window into something that you don't quite understand."
'Quicksilver' includes images that reference the sun. Here, we can consider the world at its most fundamental. Sunrises, sunsets. Warmth, darkness. Sun-ripened fruit. Enduring states of change. The simplicity of shape welcomes great depth of feeling. The unconscious human instinct to witness the rise of the sun or gaze into a flickering flame is alive and nurtured in the artist's world. Andrew Beck has distilled something so ancient and universal into individual, contemporary artworks.
Since completing his MFA at Massey University in 2011, Andrew has exhibited extensively in New Zealand and internationally. His work has featured in exhibitions at the Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Christchurch Art Gallery, Adam Art Gallery and City Gallery Wellington. In 2019 he was awarded a residency at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation in Florida, and more recently has presented solo exhibitions in Melbourne and Auckland.
