Cultivating Space by Maude Andrade

Artist list

Maude Andrade

Originally a student of botany and chemistry, Maude possesses a heightened sensibility for material and process. Skillfully, the maker unites scientific knowledge with artful intention to create pieces that define a diverse landscape of limitless beauty with formulaic design.

Unearthing a boundless perspective of shape and form, the artist contrives emotions in oil, graphite, ink and collage that exercise far-reaching possibility and meaning at its deepest core.

My interests in materials and surface come down to working within an ‘economy of means’; how thin can I make a pigment of paint or ink, how far can I take it and still have it matter? How do I make my limited time in the studio meaningful? It is working with what I have, rather than lamenting on what I don’t.
/ Maude Andrade

Her pieces may map a story of the place or physical terrain. Textured, velvety graphite surfaces have transformed into those of iridescent oxidation. Saturated oil paint stretches over the tumultuous terrains of her chiseled and collage-assembled canvases. Each creation is a testimony of time, a reflection of her environment and a result of her endless curiosity and fluctuating fascination.

I often refer to my immediate environment, New Mexico and its dry air. This, of which, has become its own material in my process and has affected many of my pieces. Due to this peculiar phenomena, certain surface treatments cannot be repeated, and have become a snapshot, a part of my history.
/ Maude Andrade

Cultivating a space, which performs as her personal laboratory, Maude conducts experiments that further propel the capabilities of her medium. Simultaneously, treating her paintings with the mind of a sculptor, she mobilizes the interworking of the composition to enliven 2-dimensional study onto a 3-dimensional frontier.

Maude yields to predetermined constraints to foster creativity, yet lives in a world of infinite inspiration. The artist encourages one to get lost in the space, relish in the expanse and recognize the abstract virtue within.