Artist Statement

My work metaphorically explores the fundamental ways that humans experience reality through patterns: patterns of energy, patterns of light, patterns of form. Patterns take on tremendous significance- culturally through the use of symbols that denote advanced concepts, materially through the application of pattern awareness (as in architecture), and personally/emotionally through the perception of patterns of life and within one's own life. My current bodies of work explore these concepts in visually arresting forms that grab the viewer and immerses them in larger-than-life creations in which they can experience the figurative simplicity that forms the seeming complexity of life.

I am most active in my 'Earthscape Painting' line of inquiry in which I rake out designs up to 100’ across on beaches around California. I head to one of several nearby beaches when the conditions are right, when the beach offers me as large a canvas as possible. This means I can only work on beaches with large, shallow slopes and only when there is the greatest difference between high and low tide. A further consideration is to finish a piece before sundown. This means I have several opportunities a month to work on the beach, opportunities to not only work on my art, but to also appreciate the natural beauty of the locations in which I work. But chaos is an essential aspect of the process, the beach is never the same between visits- even seasonally the beach changes form, allowing me to literally see the larger world patterns to which my designs allude. And lately my earthscape art has been moving more towards incorporating the chaotic, the organic, modeling the natural world more closely.

As the tide returns and the design dissolves, the beach returning to its unmarked state, I am given the opportunity to contemplate impermanence, to recognize that all things no matter how great or how large will pass. This awareness of the impending erasure of the art has the impact of stopping everyone who comes across its path. There is no chance to postpone viewing the work, it must be appreciated now in this moment outside of time in which the focus is on the experience.

Andres Amador
10/2010

Statement of Intent

Everything in existence is a consequence of the pattern of energy flow. From the very smallest level of quarks to the very highest level of galaxies, the pattern of energy flow is at the heart of being. We are surrounded by pattern, saturated in pattern, composed of pattern- the patterns that form our cells, the patterns of our bodies, the patterns of our thoughts. When we distinguish a pattern, we are indirectly experiencing the forces at work responsible for them. We often only know something based solely from the patterns left behind. The bulk of my artistic pursuits revolve around seeking the essence of the patterns of nature, the heart of the motion that instigates being. I bring this search into all my pursuits- dance, music, art, and, ultimately, life.

I am also inspired by the concepts of digital and analog and of the place where one becomes the other. Analog (continuous, seamless) and digital (units, discrete events) are two perspectives from which to view the nature of reality. Can existence be reduced to a finite number of slices with a fixed number of things or is there no end to the possible resolution? For example, much of what we experience seems continuous and yet our eyes see fewer than 30 frames per second, the reason a film reel works. We experience snippets of the ‘actual’ event. When a song recording is digitized, slices of the experience are removed, its essence is approximated. 

In the search for creative ways to express my concepts of reality, I am drawn to optical art-illusions and effects. In particular I enjoy playing with how the eye sees shape and color, forming an image of the experience in our heads. We are easily fooled, our brains perceive reality in ways limited by our biology. My Light Sculpture series explores this realm of color, negative shape, and form. Ephemeral, morphing shapes of shifting colors result. My Light Sculptures are comprised of individual strings, yet an overall unbroken form is perceived. Relative ratios of color (I only use three) create a whole rainbow palette that shifts as a sculpture moves. 

The Sand Circles series were inspired by the crop circle phenomenon in England. In these explorations I seek geometric relationships that speak to forces in nature. I create large-scale works on the beach, creating a focus of contemplative thought energy, and then watch how people respond, how they interact with the formations. Done between tides, the designs are gone within several hours, and often begin eroding immediately after finishing them, gone without any trace like the sand paintings of cultures around the world.
The name of my company, ‘Analogia’, stems from a Greek word for proportion, which is the way that one thing relates to another thing. The Golden Spiral, the template upon which so much in nature is built, including the sizing of the human body, is nothing more than a proportion. The Golden Spiral describes a specific number, which if followed repeatedly, generates the spiral or equivelantly harmonious shapes. For me Analogia describes the process of becoming, not the goal or act, but of the continuous inner transition that enables the process. This principle is a thread weaving my artistic pursuits.

Andres Amador Dec. 5, 2005