Conklin holds a BFA from the American Academy of Art in Chicago and an MFA from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. He received additional instruction at the National Academy of Design in New York and from portraitist Aaron Shikler, painter of the official JFK White House portrait. Stay up to date with Andrew S.Conklin (American, 1961). Discover works for sale, auction results, market data, news and exhibitions on MutualArt. Conklin’s work, figurative painting, employs the genre of narrative, telling stories with symbols, characters and staging to capture pictorial dramas. Stylistically, the artist’s work fits into the tradition of figurative painting using traditional methods while frequently depicting this high-tech contemporary environments.
Many artists throughout history have attempted to capture motion in figurative narratives, especially in the Baroque era. The tumultuous hunting scenes of Peter Paul Rubens come to mind. In later centuries, painters were more interested in the movement of paint rather than men or animals, and if you want bodies in motion today, that’s what cinema is for. But even filmmakers need to portray a movement that no actor can perform, and so we have computer-generated graphics and motion-capture animation. Electronic sensors are attached to the bodies of actors so that movements can be digitally recorded and then used to present what are essentially animated cartoon characters that appear more natural.
That process is the subject of paintings created over the last decade by Andrew Conklin, who has mastered the mimetic techniques of seventeenth-century Dutch painting. Brush strokes disappear behind a cool, mirror finish, yet his work could hardly be called photorealistic. There’s way too much isolation of selected objects, as well as thoughtful control of line, tone and color. He creates a slow, solemn dance of bodies, fabrics and furnishings across the canvas. It’s an ironic contrast to the fast-moving superhero or science-fiction adventure stories for which motion capture is mostly used. However juvenile these popular, big-budget movies may be, the production of each is a careful, deliberate and highly technological operation. Conklin consistently represents computer technology with an affectionate rendering of the iMac G3, the teardrop outer shell of which marked a high point in desktop product design. It was discontinued more than a decade before these paintings were made—offering its outdated modernism, like its outdated Dutch realism, as yet another irony in Conkin’s project.
“Apollo and Artemis” depicts a young man sitting beside the young woman he is painting. The man with the paintbrush in hand is sharply dressed; the woman wears no clothes at all. The depiction of this artist-model relationship, glorified in the twentieth century by Picasso, dates back at least to Durer’s depiction of an artist using a camera obscura to draw a busty, reclining woman. Conklin was likely thinking about Vermeer’s “Allegory of Painting,” and he does not appear to be challenging its patriarchal implications, where men provide the brains and women provide the bodies. Such a non-critical stance might be forgivable in outsider art, but Conklin has an MFA, and his elegant style establishes him as thoughtful. Apparently, he has chosen to ignore political correctness, and boldly follow his own preferences. One might also note that the nude he painted posing for the painter is fleshy and voluptuous, while the women in tights who work for the animation technicians are more like wooden mannequins.
Another painting included in the exhibition, “Interior with iMac and Venetian Chandelier” makes no reference to artists or technicians at all. It’s a charming, peaceful, comfortable, middle-class interior—much as Vermeer might have painted it, but with furnishings that are, as the title suggests, both contemporary and historic. The architectural space and glowing light in the room seem to be as important to the theme as the clever juxtaposition of a young woman at her iMac, in front of a wall where an absinthe poster depicts a cat reaching into a deep glass bowl. I do wish Conklin would do more such views. His work is so much better when it’s more about aesthetics than technology. (Chris Miller)
“Techno Art” is on view at Gallery Victor Armendariz, 300 West Superior, by appointment only through April 24.
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Bio
Andrew S. Conklin, Adjunct Faculty, (2007). BFA, 2000, American Academy of Art, Chicago. MFA, 2013 Academy of Art University, San Francisco. Exhibitions: National Arts Club, NYC, Institute of Arts and Letters, NYC, Horn-Ashby Gallery, NYC, Butler Institute of American Art, Youngstown OH, Ft Wayne Museum of Art, IN, University of Texas, Tyler, Harold Washington Library, Gallery Victor, Ann Nathan Gallery, Chicago. Publications: Artists Magazine, American Artist, New American Paintings. Bibliography: Chicago magazine, The Artist’s Magazine, Chicago Reader, NeotericArt.com. Collections: U.S. District Court, Boston, State Capitol, Providence, RI, Princeton University. Awards: National Arts Club, George Sugarman Foundation Grant, E. D. Foundation.
Personal Statement
My work explores the human figure as the subject, depicted realistically in oil paintings and drawings. I focus on the psychological state of the individuals, and their interactions. Defined interior spaces provide context, and may range from artist ateliers to intimate rooms to video motion capture studios, a subject that comprises much of my recent work, in which I juxtaposes the body with new technology designed to digitize the human form. I aim to raise issues about representation, idealization and aesthetics of the body.
SAIC Experience
The School of the Art Institute holds a singular place in my imagination. I visited the Museum as a child, and reveled in the vast collection of paintings. As a young artist in NYC, I met a number of talented SAIC alums and former instructors. When I moved here, I was fortunate to begin teaching Continuing Studies courses in painting, drawing and design. I find the students inspiring on a several levels: in their myriad professional and personal accomplishments, in their drive to seek knowledge and skill in the arts, and in their ability to turn their hard work into images of considerable quality and personal expression. The school’s rich resources, in staff, materials and technology bolsters the learning experience for me and the students, and makes each new term full of promise and the belief that we are working effectively towards improving ourselves, and by extension, our city.
Current Interests
The history of painting, its materials, technologies, styles and influences remains a strong and abiding interest. Another is the nature of art instruction, particularly that of the Bauhaus art school, and the extensive, and well-deserved influence it continues to exert on aesthetics and pedagogy. I take interest in developments in architecture and graphic design. My reading tends toward biography, but also in literature focusing on the post World War II Asian and Asian-American experience.
Andrew S. Conklin Painter Company
Disclaimer: All work represents the views of the INDIVIDUAL ARTISTS & AUTHORS who created them, and are not those of the school or museum of the Art Institute.