Seven years ago, Andrew Faris relocated to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, leaving his graphic design job to pursue his lifelong ambition of becoming a painter. “Design is problem solving, the answer to a question,” he says. “Whereas painting feels like an expression.” And more than anything else, what Faris aims to express in his work is the exuberance and spontaneity of life. “I’m trying to share my awe of life through action, color, and composition,” he says. “It is a chance to be present with nature.”
Faris’s paintings feature clean lines, lending his compositions a hard edge that, he says, “contains a softness of color, the disintegration of form within a form.” These dramatic color gradients, he explains, are meant to evoke “a feeling rather than a thought” and encourage the viewer to “call forth associations with nature.” His paintings, which stand about five-feet tall, unify two contradictory elements: the controlled chaos of swirling color within carefully defined boundaries.
Gush (in studio), 2021, 48 x 60 inches, acrylic on cotton.
Recent works Rush, Gush, and Flux, with plum hues and rosy blushes of faded paint, evoke the wild sunsets of Wyoming and bring to mind light disappearing behind a mountain at the end of a summer day. “I hope viewers feel the present moment,” Faris says. “Hopefully they feel inspiration.”
