Artist Focus - Andrew Naish

Andrew Naish

Our final featured artist for March is Andrew Naish. You can visit Andrews Feature window at the Wynd Gallery from March 31 - April 9 and find out more about Andrew and his

work below.

The Wynd Gallery is a co-operative art gallery

run by local artists. The gallery offers an ever-changing exhibition of contemporary prints, paintings, sculpture, jewellery, photography, ceramics and textiles.

The gallery promotes the Arts in Letchworth Garden City and provides an exciting venue suitable for artists working across

a range of contemporary visual arts media. Throughout the year our artists will share their work through our feature window programme

You are our current featured artist at the Wynd gallery, with our featured artist window. Please tell us about what we can expect to see when we visit the gallery?

I'm using this opportunity to display a series of paintings based on a group of yellow Rudbeckia plants. It's a subject I've returned to on numerous occasions since its first appearance in 2012. I've enjoyed bringing a variety of interpretations to this vibrant and graphic image every time I pick up my brushes and acrylic paints. I'm hoping seeing this burst of bright yellow en-masse will help enliven the days of each passer by and visitor alike.

Can you tell us a little about your journey into art?

Following a Foundation Course in Art and Design in St. Albans, I spent nearly 20 years practicing Museum and Exhibition Design. Following this in 2010 I returned to painting and haven't looked back.

What materials or techniques do you most enjoy working with?

I enjoy working with acrylics and chalk pastels, though I have found myself dabbling in oils once again and would like to pursue this more in the future.

What’s one tool you couldn’t live without?

I'm going to be a bit controversial and say masking tape! It's not something that really adds creativity to a project, but I regularly use it for masking out parts of a picture before adding an expressive sky or keeping straight lines between buildings. I'm never happier than when I have some masking tape, a scalpel and a cutting mat!

Where do you draw inspiration from? Nature, people, emotions, or something else?

I find graphic shapes are important to me and a composition must satisfy before I apply it to a canvas. This requirement can be fulfilled within a variety of subject areas.

What projects or ideas are you excited to explore next?

I'd like to do a series of paintings depicting building work or road works. The changing industrial landscape and potential for growth and creation has fascinated me since childhood. Typography and bright coloured shapes within this scenery is an added bonus.

What’s one surprising fact about you that people might not expect?

Although I'm really quite boring; I did fairly recently sing "I'm a Catch" and two other songs on stage as Mr. Collins in a musical version of Pride and Prejudice in Caddington. Does that count?

Do you have a ritual or routine that helps you get into a creative mindset?

I wish I did. I find I just put some music on, shut the door and get on with it.

Coffee, tea, or something else while you create?

Mainly tea, but I find that the making of it can be an excuse to procrastinate.

What advice would you give someone who wants to start exploring craft or art themselves?

Just do it! as a trainer company once said. What you produce is just stuff, the more you do the better you get. Get over it being precious and profound - you are just moving paint around a canvas as an artist friend once said to me.