@andy.dxn

Instagram: @andy.dxn  

1. What's your story? Where are you from?

I was born and raised in Vancouver, Canada, and lived in New York for a bit. I'll be heading to LA as soon as my working visa comes through.

2. Tell us about your aesthetic.

I've always been drawn to imperfection; the artefacts in art that show it was made by a human being with limitations. I love playful, pretty colours and child-like lines

3. What is your favourite medium and why?

Painting. I've tried em all and it's the one that stuck. I love working with opaque pigments that completely knock out what's underneath them, almost like a photoshop brush.

4. What is your artistic process like?

I prime the unstretched canvas with a solid colour, generally pink or turquoise, and then work on the floor of my studio, walking on my pieces. Unlike most painters, I stretch my pieces after I'm done painting them.

5. Who and/or what inspires your work?

I think all artists are inspired by every morsel of stimuli he or she comes into contact with. I'm constantly cataloguing everything I see around me - colour combinations, forms, etc. Even the things I find incredibly ugly are inspiring in that what-not-to-do sort of way.

6. What role does art play in your life? How does it change the way you view the world?

I guess that depends on how you define "art" in the question. I'm definitely the kind of person who has always been heavily drawn to all modes of creative expression - novels, films, music and, of course, visual art. I've been drawn to aesthetics since before I can remember. To answer the second question, I would say it's the other way around, actually. The way I view the world changed me into an artist.

7. Where did you study?

Nowhere

8. Where do you see yourself in five years? Working in an agency?

I see myself wearing a pale pink linen suit in a beautiful candy-coloured Spanish seaside town, sipping iced vermouth.

9. What about in ten?

I see myself wearing a pale green linen suit in a beautiful candy-coloured Italian seaside town, sipping a negroni.

10. What do you hope to achieve with your art?

That's a big question! I think, if the objective of an artist can be broken down into a quick sentence, he or she might be in it for the wrong reasons. I don't really do it with any specific goal in mind, or maybe it's better said that I have too many specific goals in mind. In some ways, I just want to satisfy the deep desire I have to make things but I also want to say something important about culture and art while making people chuckle.

11. Now, tell us a little more about you as a person: what is your favourite food?

I like my food to be light and zesty, generally. Ceviche, tacos, coconut curries, etc.

12. Favourite book?

In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower by Proust. Specifically the Lydia Davis translation.

13. Favourite genre of music?

Rap, R&B, and experimental ambient stuff

14. What are your hobbies?

I'm fortunate enough to be able to do my hobby for a living. Painting is more or less all I do all day every day. When I'm not at the studio, I'm probably out with friends talking about all the little details of life that make it worth living or drinking wine and watching forensic crime documentaries.

15. If you weren't an artist, what would you be?

I'd be a non-violent criminal, like a cat burglar or an art thief.