Detail of Oizys, Artist: Andrew Binder, 2024

Honestly, this image wasn't originally meant to be so...purple, but I decided to let the process go where it was taking me. I originally envisioned it as overwhelmingly blue, but as the piece developed it kept coming out a bit too drab, and so more and more magenta tones kept being added. Like my prior piece Man, Composition in Red and Blue, this is a bit of an experiment mixing digital watercolor in with elements of my usual process (with the digital watercolor taking the lead). I'm experimenting with this flattened, mysterious figure idea at the moment.

The title Oizys refers to an ancient Greek goddess, a lesser deity that personified misery, distress and suffering. As usual, I'm not concerned with being consistent with any traditional visual representations of this mythological figure. Rather, I use the title "Oizys" as an expressive conceptual device. A lot of my work represents what I'm feeling at the moment, or is a reflection of my feelings about what's going on in the world around me, etc. I wanted the figure to appear almost as a phantasm whose features were not clear or distinct, yet conveyed a feeling of sadness and foreboding. A harbinger of doom. “Oizys” seems a perfect reflection of the feelings that were going into this image when making it.

Detail of Nocturne, Artist: Andrew Binder, 2024

Nocturne was started almost a year ago, with a different  concept and a completely different color palette. It was abandoned for awhile as my attention was diverted to other pieces and ideas. When I returned to it, I immediately started changing it to fit my current mood and direction;  building upon the foundation of what was done previously.  I began to change the palette to reflect a much darker, cooler feeling. I began to paint it differently as well in a manner that I am beginning to think of as my “New Expressive Style”. The end result, is an amalgam of the past and present, of older and newer developing techniques. A transitional work, that has one foot in what was, and the other in what is to come.

Detail of Disrupted Portrait Study 8.24.23, Artist: Andrew Binder, 2023

Disrupted Portrait Study 8.24.23 was intended to be a quick, free-flowing study with little expectation of what it would look like in the end. It was meant to be practice with the intent of being loose and expressive. My concern was mainly exercising some new techniques and custom brushes I've developed over the last few months.

Detail of Portrait Study 8.18.23, Artist: Andrew Binder, 2023

The bare bones of Portrait Study 8.18.23 was started as a study months ago and then abandoned. I picked it up again recently but was not satisfied with my initial result after working on it again. It felt too stiff and overwrought. I realized I was being too careful and calculated in painting it. I stripped it back to its early layer stages and then built it back up again, while attempting a looser more immediate approach. I'm much more satisfied with this final version.

Detail of Repression of the Self: Emotion, Artist: Andrew Binder, 2023

Detail of Repression of the Self: Desire, Artist: Andrew Binder, 2023

Both of these pieces began as one image, which was to be an experiment in fracturing and "destroying" the figure within a darker color palette than I have been using. Partly in preparation for a future project idea I have. The process quickly grew from being a simple test to a proper piece, which then grew into two related but separate pieces. The images are also informed by things I was thinking about while working on them. One of which being the various ways society attempts to destroy individuality and self-expression, and the effect on the psyche of those of us who don't feel we fit in a certain mold.

Detail of Deconstructed Head in Pink, Red, and Blue, Artist: Andrew Binder, 2023

Detail of Deconstructed Head in Pink, Red, and Blue, Artist: Andrew Binder, 2023

Detail of Deconstructed Head in Pink, Red, and Blue, Artist: Andrew Binder, 2023

Deconstructed Head in Pink, Red, and Blue began with the intention of being a quick study, but grew into a struggle, a learning experience, and a much more complicated piece. There was a point where I was very frustrated with it and wanted to abandon it. Then I got sick for a about a week or so. I returned to it afterward and saw what I had done in a more favorable light. I saw a new path forward for the piece. Something very different than what was originally intended. When I was finally completing it, while listening to a dark ambient mix, the sky outside was an apocalyptic orange hue, as smoke from the Canadian forest fires blanketed New York. In the end being forced to "step away" from the image for a while allowed me to come back and see it with new eyes. It wound up being the best thing for this particular piece.

Detail of Portrait Study in Blue 3.03.23, Artist: Andrew Binder, 2023

This study features a monochromatic figure, painted in blue tones, expressionless, with features that seem to shift and dissolve. For the last couple of years or so, I've been doing a lot of "studies" where I've been experimenting with different methods of combining digital painting with traditional elements within my artistic process. Lately I've been hitting upon a workflow and method that is allowing me to more accurately achieve what is in my head. There is something about this "fracturing" that (to me, at least) is evocative of so many different things.

Detail of Dissonant Harmony in Pink and Cyan, Artist: Andrew Binder, 2023

The figure dissolves, or perhaps takes shape, in a distorted cacophony of pink, brown and light magenta hues, against a cyan void. Created with a combination of painted acrylic layers and coffee drips on paper, which were scanned and combined with many digital painted layers at low opacities, slowly building up the form. Multiple variations of "expressive" layers of abstracted elements were interlaced with the figure, some building off of, and distorting the original acrylic layers. These variations were combined, added, and subtracted, eventually creating a final composition.