As I scrolled by means of Instagram’s Uncover web page, among the many smorgasbord of “content material chances are you’ll like,” a pair of sneakers caught my eye. These weren’t some run-of-the-mill Jordans or Nike Air Drive Ones; the sneakers had been adorned with acutely-detailed work of squid, narwhals, brook trout, marlin, and shorebirds, typically accompanied by stars and constellations. The sneakers appeared like they belonged on show in an artwork museum greater than they belonged on the ft of a metropolis slicker. However for Brooklyn-based artist Andrew Thompson, sneakers are probably the most logical canvas as a result of his inventive craftsmanship ties his city life-style to a love for the pure world.
Thompson grew up in Brooklyn, the place he had a transparent view of New York Harbor from his bed room window. As an adolescent in the course of the Nineteen Nineties, when graffiti was particularly widespread within the NYC hip-hop group, he was occupied with unorthodox artwork types. He studied artwork at Fiorello H. LaGuardia Excessive College of Music & Artwork and Performing Arts earlier than it turned his main at Kenyon Faculty in Ohio. Though Thompson had no explicit focus throughout his collegiate research, he found a ardour for sculpting and portray.
After faculty, Thompson labored in a gallery the place he dealt with artwork dealing, and he even curated a number of reveals for the well-known American artist Thomas Hart Benton. All of the whereas, Thompson had his personal studio, the place he was continually creating and experimenting with watercolor, oil, and acrylic paints throughout his free time.
By some self-reflection and experimentation, Thompson got here to understand that he most loved portray “issues” fairly than portray on a typical canvas, very like these rebellious graffiti artists of the Nineteen Nineties who most popular canvases within the type of trains, buildings, and overpasses. “I like portray sculpturally and I like issues to maneuver,” he mentioned. “A altering canvas is extra distinctive and brings life to the topic.” Nonetheless, these city environment weren’t his solely affect. He additionally attracts inspiration from early 20th century American painters like Winslow Homer and Edward Hopper, which he mixed together with his admiration of fish, wildlife, the ocean, and outer area.
“I actually take pleasure in people artwork, in order that’s why I like woodworking and creating sculptures of fish and duck decoys,” Thompson mentioned. Utilizing wooden in each his sculptures and as canvas got here from time spent residing and fishing in upstate New York.
Earlier than he turned a father, Thompson spent half of every yr residing in Brooklyn and the opposite half within the Adirondack Mountains. His household has a spot on Lake George, the place they now spend a portion of their summers. It’s additionally the place he enjoys fly fishing for lake trout and landlocked Atlantic salmon when smelt are working the lake’s tributaries, bringing these sought-after salmonids into shallow water every spring. At present, he doesn’t have as a lot time as he’d like to go to or fish Lake George, however he acknowledges the function the woods, the mountains, paddling, and fly fishing play in his inventive course of.
Thompson’s items are a novel intersection of city graffiti, fish and wildlife, and the country aura of the Adirondacks, which ties in his appreciation for people artwork. His work and sculptures concurrently seize the cosmic power of area and the ocean by portraying fish and marine life on an energetic canvas, whether or not it’s a contemporary pair of white Nikes or a set of oars for a canoe. “I goal to seize the final power of what’s taking place underwater, and the dreaminess and vastness of the ocean and area,” mentioned Thompson. “The ocean is one other world, and it’s principally unexplored, so it would as nicely be cosmic.”
His work is cosmic certainly. It’s simply as simple to get misplaced within the depth and complexity of a single fish painted over the backdrop of a constellation as it’s to get misplaced in thought when admiring a transparent, starry night time sky in the course of the summer time. That’s a part of what led Thompson to start engaged on fish-themed globes. “The thought for globes got here years in the past after I was portray bait balls on gourds that had been nearly good spheres,” Thompson mentioned. “However gourds are form of non permanent, so to additional improve that cosmic power, I thought of different, extra everlasting spherical objects that I might paint in the identical means, and globes had been the subsequent logical step.”
For now, Thompson is concentrated on sculpting fish to accompany his nautical, cosmic-themed globes, alongside together with his murals, that are at the moment being represented by Surovek Gallery in Palm Seaside, Florida. Nonetheless, he continues to observe his craft by means of sensible objects that improve the kinetic power he seeks to elicit with work of education fish or a mahi on the prowl. “The painted fish sneakers are a cool mission, and I’ve loads of enjoyable engaged on them. They’re made to be gown sneakers, so it’s form of my very own distinctive tackle customized sneakerhead tradition,” mentioned Thompson.
From his annual visits to Cape Cod and Martha’s Winery, to Lake George and Champlain, to the famed harbor in his personal yard, Thompson has skilled all that our Northeast fisheries have to supply. Nonetheless, he doesn’t focus his paintings on the areas he fishes. As a substitute, he’s centered on sharing the power and thriller of what’s taking place beneath the water’s floor. “To some extent, my fashion comes from an angling sensibility. The perfect fishermen are those who can image what’s taking place subsurface with their lure or fly, and that’s what I goal to depict.” Thompson admitted that whereas he admires all species of fish and enjoys variation, he’ll all the time have a particular curiosity in people who remind him of the Northeast. “Final yr, I had a present that was centered on south Atlantic fish, however my coronary heart actually lies with the north Atlantic species and trout,” he famous.
At present, Thompson’s paintings is displayed in personal collections throughout the USA. His potential to create such a dynamic physique of labor whereas sustaining a well-known aesthetic, from sneakers and oars to globes and murals, is admirable. So, the subsequent time you see a pair of plain white kicks on the shelf or useless wall area at your uncle’s new seashore home, think about the power slightly little bit of paint and fervour might carry to your residing area, or higher but, your wardrobe.
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