About
My Work
I am in love with paint as a substance, in its viscous, muddy form and its dry, flexible skin. I build with paint and with color; each layer an event of slow germination fused to the one before it, culminating into a self sustainable substance: a hide of seductive skin-like plastic. The creatures borne from this process evoke in the viewer the sense that they are encountering a strange but familiar form of life- one that oscillates between corporeal body and representation thereof. These imagined beings dance in and out of the abject, finding buoyancy in a life defined by the constant and inescapable force of gravity.
The Accumulations series studies the carnal inner body, the meat and organs of a paint organism through the cannibalizing and reincarnation of older works. I compulsively collect the cast off and detritus of older pieces, small experiments, and assemble them. Shards of paint and silicone become tongues and valves; extrusions of caulk and polyurethane become tubes and veins. These accumulations document the moment where paint, image, and flatness grow from two dimensions into fleshy form en masse.
Biography
Andrea Lawl Manning is a Southeast CT based sculptor and installation artist. She studied at the Glasgow School of Art and holds a BFA from Pratt Institute. She's exhibited in Brooklyn, Manhattan, Glasgow, Southern CT, and extensively throughout the Long Island Region, including the Islip Art Museum, Hygienic Art, Art League of Long Island, AIR Gallery, Superfine Art Fair and the Living Gallery Outpost, with a solar show at One River School Port Jefferson.
In her current body of work of process-based hanging sculpture and installations Andrea plays with color, paint, paper, plastics, and fiber to explore the ways we construct identity. Andrea is dedicated to building communities centered around creativity through interactive installations that encourage interpersonal literacy, by organizing a collective of artists, and by developing creative programming for arts organizations.
