MORE Gorssel
10 oktober 2021 t/m 23 januari 2022

Pat Andrea

From 10 October 2021 to 23 January 2022, Museum MORE in Gorssel is holding a retrospective of the work of Past Andrea (born 1942), entitled ¿QUÉ PASA?. Born in The Hague as the son of a painter and an illustrator, Andrea is renowned both in the Netherlands and internationally. In his unsettling compositions, he combines global conflicts with “the often problematic relationship between man and women”. Aestheticism and alienation elevate the works above the level of reality. Over seventy paintings and drawings, dating from the 1960s to the present day, are testimony to an artistry that is imaginative and critical in equal amounts.

Femme fatale

Her beauty and eroticism are combined with a dominant, sometimes aggressive image. There is a constant tension between attraction and repulsion. Movements frozen in time give the impression of a snapshot, an isolated yet momentous scene from an infinitely huge and complex story, in which the viewer not infrequently feels a voyeur. Enigmatic details and changing perspectives provide an atmosphere that is unmistakeably magical.

From 1998 to 2007, Pat Andrea taught at the prestigious École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris. In 2002, he was admitted to the Académie des beaux-arts de l’Institut de la France. He himself was schooled at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, where Co Westerik was his most important teacher. Once graduated, he used quirky campaigns to draw attention to himself. For example, his first solo exhibition at Galerie 20 in Amsterdam in 1966 opened with a boxing match.

The clarity and accessibility of his art does not mean that it is easy to understand. Andrea evokes questions, tricky questions, about sex and power, about violence and beauty, about seduction and desire.

In the awareness that no single answer can solve man’s existential fear and helplessness, he draws and paints his stories with an open end.