Andrea Brewster: FROZEN MOMENT
October 23 - November 28, 2020
Andrea Brewster’s work is often comprised of otherworldly, organic, abstractions, which reference biological life and natural processes. She is particularly intrigued by the mathematical order underlying growth patterns and often utilizes similar algorithmic systems of repetition.
For her upcoming show at Mercury 20 Gallery, Brewster has developed a new body of sculptural work entitled Frozen Moment. These pieces created out of wet formed vellum paper, explore the delicate, yet energetic, dynamic processes of the natural world and the chaotically creased geography of crumpled paper.
Brewster observes that in nature nothing stands still. These pieces with their twisting, rippling forms, honor this vigorous action by reminding the viewer of waves, clouds and smoke, ceaselessly flowing and dissolving. Crumpling, on the other hand, is an exercise in controlled disorder, resulting in an object of extraordinary mathematical and structural complexity.
For these works, Brewster was also inspired by the suspended motion that she observed in the drapery of classical and baroque sculpture. In this way her interest in textiles and natural processes have come full circle. As she states; “If life is in unceasing movement, then perhaps art pauses and captures a single frame of that perpetual film. Life is stilled, frozen for a moment, thereby implying the possibility of a context, which is stable and unchangeable; where time and limitation have no meaning.”
Available Work
Andrea Brewster
Andrea Brewster graduated cum laude with a BA in Sculpture from Pomona College and obtained her MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in New Genres. In 1993 she received a National Endowment for the Arts grant for her works on paper. She has exhibited throughout the Bay Area, including solo shows at The Lab and Southern Exposure in San Francisco; and in group shows at Chandra Cerrito Contemporary, the Oakland Museum of California, New Langton Arts in San Francisco, and the Peninsula Museum in San Bruno, California. In 2017, her work was included in an international exhibition devoted to Tatting, a technique for handcrafting a particularly durable lace from a series of knots and loops at the Lacis Museum of Lace and Textiles in Berkeley. In 2020, her work was included in the Headford Lace Project show, “The Space Between,” in Galway, Ireland and in 2021 in the Bi-Annual International Fiber Arts X exhibition held in Sebastopol, California.
For more about Andrea Brewster