Society of Animal Artists Signature member Andrew Denman's exhibition opens in September at the Lindsay Wildlife Museum in Walnut Creek, California.
David J. Wagner, Ph. D., Curator/Tour Director
September 19 - 27, 2015
Walnut Creek (San Francisco), CA
October 31, 2015 - January 3, 2016
Tucson, AZ
Society of Animal Artists Signature member Andrew Denman announces ANDREW DENMAN: THE MODERN WILD, a museum exhibition consisting of a diverse range of paintings, drawings, and studies showcasing Denman’s unique style, a style that has brought him to the leading edge of an evolving genre. The exhibit will premiere in September, 2015 at the Lindsay Wildlife Museum in Walnut Creek (San Francisco), CA, and tour to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum into 2016. Additional venues are anticipated.
In the overly crowded and often overly conservative wildlife art genre, Denman’s cutting edge blend of hyper-realism with stylization and abstraction immediately distinguish him from his peers. The sense of fearless experimentation he brings to the easel expresses itself in a diversity of stylistic approaches and subjects, from birds to big cats, landscape, trompe le’oeil still life, the human figure, and even surrealism. “Between the drudgery of illustration and the vacuity of decoration lies the evocative; that is the province of the artist, and that is the realm to which my work belongs,” says Andrew Denman of his edgy portrayals of the natural world.
Denman possesses a deep and abiding love of animals and the wild places they inhabit, and his dedication to technical accuracy rivals that of any other living wildlife artist, but his true passion is a decidedly contemporary interpretation of nature, not a classical representation of it. While the artist often includes naturalistic settings in his work, he is just as likely to depict an animal subject in an entirely non objective space. These contrasts vary from the subtle to the extreme, but always the blend is visually seamless and intellectually challenging. The artist often incorporates letters, numbers, and snatches of his own poetry to create intriguing and even sometimes humorous juxtapositions. Informed by an understanding of art history, poetry, nature, and science, Andrew’s work embodies not only a mature visual expression beyond his years, but an intellectual depth and conceptual significance seldom found in “animal art.”
Denman possesses a deep and abiding love of animals and the wild places they inhabit, and his dedication to technical accuracy rivals that of any other living wildlife artist, but his true passion is a decidedly contemporary interpretation of nature, not a classical representation of it. While the artist often includes naturalistic settings in his work, he is just as likely to depict an animal subject in an entirely non objective space. These contrasts vary from the subtle to the extreme, but always the blend is visually seamless and intellectually challenging. The artist often incorporates letters, numbers, and snatches of his own poetry to create intriguing and even sometimes humorous juxtapositions. Informed by an understanding of art history, poetry, nature, and science, Andrew’s work embodies not only a mature visual expression beyond his years, but an intellectual depth and conceptual significance seldom found in “animal art.”
“I consider myself deeply fortunate,” says the artist, to have possessed such clarity as to my life’s purpose since childhood.” At just thirty two years of age, it is that clarity of purpose, coupled with an adventurous spirit and unflagging dedication, that has already cemented Andrew Denman’s reputation amongst his peers and collectors, and which will no doubt propel him to a station of high regard amongst the next generation of great artists.
