House Painter
Andy Cross
House Painter has a pitched roof, a door, three windows and even a little front porch. It is literally a house made out of paintings. About a hundred paintings cover the exterior, combined together as if they were simple construction materials, creating the effect of a visual kaleidoscope.
None of the paintings were made specifically for the House: plein-air, portraits, self-portraits, nudes, still-lifes, abstract and text paintings become a sort of narrative of the artist's experimenting with pictorial language in the last few years, and each of them was made independently of the other. Only later did Cross assemble them to become part of a more pervasive and comprehensive experience.
The epiphany of lights, colours, shapes and unexpected relations between them and the piece, as generated by the work on the easel inside this “new studio” became a revelation for the artist.
His construction and painting approach breaks down the language barriers we often use to separate disciplines and styles: architecture, sculpture and painting blur together and strike a dialogue within a dimension of total power of expression.
“Recycle the painting: flip it over and start anew; cut it up and collage the parts onto another painting. Screw a few paintings together to create a larger surface and then paint on top of it all over again. Or, combine paintings together and make a house.” That is his practice, openly declared and applied in this project acting more like a bridge, connecting “opposite” sides - inside and outside, personal and public - in line with his vision of life experienced as a an on-going “artist's residence”.