Larry Andrews Paintings

My abstract expressionist images are “scopic” – both microscopic and telescopic. Accumulated images in my subconcious (from sources like the Hubble telescope and electron microscope scans) very much attract and amaze me. As I start to paint, they flood my brain and stream down my arm to my hand and on to the surfaces.

For me, physical images are best captured with photography and then possibly manipulated with photo shop. Instead, I extract the lines and curves and color of those literal images and throw them on to the surface - reflecting the ongoing work of the universe that is organizing and creating new worlds and expressions. I push the viewer’s brain into the primeval goo that is our origin, to reflect the chaos from which all things began.

I call this the Cosmic Cycle: Chaos, Complexity, and Collapse. It started almost 14 billion years ago with the Big Bang. Hydrogen and helium were flung into the universe where gravity compressed them into gases and solids, eventually forming the heavier elements. Then the next steps were black holes and supernova - more explosions of more complex compound elements. Of course, entrophy is thought to be the last stage - the final cooling, neutralization, and collapse of everything.

Our planet, our lives are now in the complexity stage and gravity is a major force. Currently, I do not touch the painting surfaces, instread I rely on gravity to throw out and form the lines and curves. Generally I stick to the basic colors - black and white, and the primaries (yellow, red, and blue) - with a just a modicum of the more complex color compounds. Thus my Abex expressions.