“NO STRAIGHT LINES, THE SECOND EXHIBITION IN HEXTON GALLERY’S ONGOING EXPLORATION OF ASPEN’S HISTORIC IMPACT ON THE VISUAL ARTS, CELEBRATES THE CURVING AND NONLINEAR PATHWAYS THAT LEAD RENEGADE AND ESTABLISHED ARTISTS TO THIS MOUNTAIN ENCLAVE. THE EXHIBITION EXPLORES HOW CHANCE AND IMPROVISATION HAVE SHAPED THEIR WORK AND FORMED THIS EVER-EVOLVING CREATIVE COMMUNITY IN JUXTAPOSITION TO THE FORMAL AND RIGID ABSTRACTION PRESENT IN THEIR ARTISTIC OUTPUT.”
- Andrew Travers
Andrew Travers is an Aspen based journalist and Penner Manager of Educational Programs at The Resnick Center for Herbert Bayer Studies
EXHIBITING ARTIST INCLUDE: HERBERT BAYER, KENNETH NOLAND, RICHARD CARTER, EVAN HECOX, PHILLIP K. SMITH III, AND ANDREW HUFFMAN.
Places and Spaces presents the abstract paintings of Andrew Huffman. The title of the exhibition calls attention to the artist’s pursuit of a new direction in Hard Edge painting by seeking to imbue a genius loci into the formal geometric language of the movement. Places and Spaces features a selection of new and recent medium format paintings that seek to encapsulate the sensibilities of specific landscapes that the artist has explored, transforming states of being and feeling into cathartic optical objects. Building on the language of precisely positioned sharp edged color and predetermined sets of shapes arranged with an economy of means, Huffman pursues creating dynamic pattern systems, where conditions of instability foster new adaptations.
Employing a pallet of high-key saturated colors in conjunction with cool greys and whites, Huffman’s paintings vibrate optically and spatially drawing equally from Supergraphics, Hard Edge and Optical art traditions of the West Coast. His compositions probe the visceral possibilities of positive and negative spaces on the surface of the canvas starting with graphite on the raw canvas and then developed in certain areas with subsequent layers of clear gesso set apart from other areas saturated with rich layers of color. He states, “I am fascinated with the ways pattern coupled with color can elicit directional movement and evoke visual harmonies and connections.” He seeks to dynamically engage the eye and mind of the viewer with the negative spaces being equally important and acting like windows into the development of the trajectory of the works. They allude to the enigmatic spaces and places of the mind and memory, and are in his words, “a call and response similar to a musician willing to listen and later accompany through improvisation.”
Huffman’s methodical paintings have a distinct sculptural presence. Not only are the painting’s surface plane projected forward off the wall surface creating an offset shadow along the bottom and sides, but the artist also continues and expands his painting’s compositions onto the deep edges of his panels. Challenging the objectives of formal purity and flatness inherent in historical Hard-Edge painting, Huffman creates dimensional paintings that engage space and resonate with the complex and hybrid nature of contemporary culture. Huffman states, “I want my paintings to reference painting, drawing, sculpture, and installation simultaneously through their physical form and visual depictions.”
Investigating patterns and color metaphorically, Huffman draws inspiration from locations he travels to explore. In selecting the shapes of geometric forms and the exact chroma of the colors for his compositions, he seeks to evoke elements in nature and the imagination, and in turn creating physical representations of the enigmatic psychological states of seeing, feeling, and thinking. The titles of his paintings often refer to specific places or the flora found in them and posit with the viewer that the works are landscapes of a sort. Both literal, symbolic, highly abstracted, and deeply personal, his works are in a way like distillations or like puzzles that challenge the viewer to engage in them. As Huffman states, “through the process of painting, I'm constantly juggling an intuitive balance of intricate additive information orchestrated amongst functioning negative space."
Eleanor Harwood Gallery is delighted to announce a two-person exhibit with Andrew Huffman and Martin Machado. Wave Forms marks the beginning of the gallery's new “Atrium Spotlight” series, presented on the outer walls of the gallery. Wave Forms juxtaposes very different interpretations of the physics of a curve.
Huffman breaks down the components of the San Francisco landscape and renders sharp colorful geometry representing the California coastline and the Golden Gate bridge as abstraction. He leaves us with enough references, by titling the works International Orange 1 and 2 and using “safety orange” in the paintings, to allow us to infer that he is painting the Bay Area’s most iconic bridge. His paintings are meditations on his own uncoupling and looking forward to venturing into new territories and relationships.
Machado’s “My Wake Series” are paintings that depict the roiling surface of the water viewed from high upon a container ship. Marchado works in the commercial maritime industry, pulling imagery, and in this case, physical charts from his journeys and uses them as source material for his oil paintings.
Waterscapes and their shifting motions lend themselves to endless interpretation. These artists are both travelers, experiencing the ocean from its depths, beaches and thoroughfares. The water changes as do our lives. The work in this show is full of movement, using pattern and color variation to carry our eyes across the canvas. The ocean is a dynamic, unstable system. This instability forces us to adapt ourselves and our perspectives; Huffman tightens up the lines, while Marchado abstracts the waves even further.
“DOMINO PROJECTION”, Denver Art Museum.
Andrew Huffman’s work interacts with physical space in a vibrant and lively fashion, often investigating air itself as a medium and subject matter. As viewers move around his color-filled artwork geometry, mathematics, improvisation, and discovery inform the experience. Domino Projection is a site-specific, ephemeral installation that responds to the existing architecture and contemporary times to produce a unique, optimistic, and interactive art experience. Viewers are encouraged to be another moving variable (or “domino”) that not only participates in the installation but also completes the work. As Huffman states: “dominoes may be destined to fall due to gravity, but we can always rebuild and stack them up again.”
NEW YORK, NY.- David Richard Gallery is presenting Andrew Huffman’s first solo exhibition in New York City and his second solo with the gallery. The presentation includes 10 new canvases organized as 4 single paintings and 3 diptychs. The sizes of the artworks range from 30 x 30 inches up to 60 x 60 inches square and a couple measuring 30 x 60 inches in horizontal formats. This is a debut of not only diptych canvases, but also all new compositions that depart from his familiar woven lattice format. These new paintings are based on pentagonal tessellations where the pentagon shapes are abstracted and assembled in rigorous grid-like repeating patterns as well as tessellated to generate asymmetric compositions. Huffman has cleverly leveraged the asymmetry and combined this feature within the diptych compositions. Each panel has an asymmetric arrangement of shapes. However, the pair of paintings within a diptych are mirrored compositionally, but not with respect to the specific arrangement of colors in each. Thus, at first glance, each canvas singly as well as the diptych, reads as asymmetric compositions and in a narrative fashion. Ignoring the color placement in each canvas and looking only at the arrangement of the internal shapes in each diptych, the overall structures are symmetrical. Therefore, all remains well in the universe of geometry and pattern painting.
Locus point: a point whose location satisfies or is determined by one or more specified conditions.
Color Theory features three Colorado-based artists whose paintings and sculptural installations intersect color and mathematics. Discoveries in physics and mathematics ground our modern understanding and use of color, and artists have investigated this relationship for centuries. The exhibition will include a monumental installation inside the Ent Center for the Arts.
Andrew Huffman will be in the Paint Studio demonstrating modulated: hard-line bbstraction noon–3 pm on January 18-19, 2020. The Paint Studio is included with general admission, which is free for members and youth 18 and under.
Andrew Huffman has exhibited primarily in United States galleries in Ohio, Kansas, New Mexico, New York, and Colorado. In the U.S. his works currently are in the homes of friends and collectors in New York City; Los Angeles; Columbus; Albuquerque; Kansas City (MO), Denver, and beyond. On the international side, he has had exhibited twice in Berlin, Germany, at the Neurotitan Gallery (2014) and Sluice Exchange Berlin 2018 at the Kuhlhaus, and also completed a mural in Old Dali City, in Yunnan, China (2009). Huffman currently finished a two-year artist and residence program at Redline Contemporary Art Center in Denver, Colorado, and also completed the FBAIR (Facebook Artist in Residence) in November of 2018. He also had a solo exhibition with the David Richard Gallery in 2018 in Santa Fe, New Mexico that is now based in NYC.
Modulated 32 (#1) & Modulated 32 (#2), Andrew Huffman
PROVIDING THE FOLLOWING SERVICES: Design coordination, Materials research, Budget management, Engineering coordination and oversight, Fabricator bid process, Fabrication oversight, Lighting design development, Shipping, Installation services, Scheduling, Project close-out.
We are currently working with Denver based artist Andrew Huffman on a work of public art for Block 4 of Continuum Partners redevelopment of 9th & Colorado. This redevelopment project reintegrates the former 26-acre University of Colorado School of Medicine campus into the surrounding neighborhood fabric by blending apartments and townhomes with retail, offices and new public green spaces. For Block 4 Huffman was commissioned to create two paintings (pictured below) that would serve as focal points on the exterior of a parking garage. Choosing his color palate carefully, Huffman created two striking, bold, patterned, geometric compositions that add vibrant focal points to the North and East entrances of the parking garage. Modulated 32 (#1) & Modulated 32 (#2) both employ the same pentagonal tessellation pattern and color palates but differ in the placement of the colors creating a visual conversation between the two compositions as you round the corner of the building. The works are named for the 32 colors used in each composition. In order to scale the work properly for the site Huffman created the two paintings at 1/12 the size of the final printed Structurflex panels which measure 47’ 1” x 32’ (North) and 49’ 1” x 40’ 11” (East).
We recently completed two additional public art projects on Block 7 of this campus with former Denver based artist Daisy Patton and Denver based artist Kevin Sloan.
Andrew Huffman's debut exhibition opens at David Richard Gallery: Art Daily Article
SANTA FE, NM.- In Andrew Huffman’s debut exhibition with David Richard Gallery, he presents a series of new paintings entitled, Modulated. Based on the grid and utilizing an overlapping lattice structure, these hard edge paintings have many different combinations of hues and color interactions that explore illusory space and depth in a two-dimensional picture plane and challenge the viewer’s visual perception.
Huffman’s art-making practice includes painting, installation and sculpture in a variety of media. He uses color and color interactions combined with scale and bold compositions to push the boundaries of each medium and explore real and illusory space. His radical approaches and combinations of media, symbols and hues create a very personal and unique experience for viewers and evokes design and architectural references, particularly in his installations. The focus of this exhibition is a new series of paintings, each titled Modulated with a specific number, where the number refers to the number of different color interactions working together within that particular painting. This series is based on the grid with an overlapping woven lattice structure and crisp, clean hard edges. Huffman’s systematic approach to painting allows additional patterns to develop and emerge in an array of palettes. The paintings also wrap around the sides and are literally floated off the wall, giving them an object-like quality and encouraging viewers to walk around the painting and engage from different angles and distances. Viewing from many different angles and distances provides an even broader range of hues and optical experience, thus challenging the viewer’s perception and triggering a familiarity and range of interconnections.
A spirited, highly motivated and talented artist, Huffman is completing a two-year artist and residency program at Redline in Denver, Colorado (2016-2018). In April, 2018 an installation that he conceived and curated, “Locus Point”, was presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver. His exhibitions in the US have mostly been in the Midwest. Internationally, his artworks have been exhibited at the Neurotitan Gallery in Berlin, Germany, and he has a mural exhibited in Old Dali City, in Yunnan, China.
Huffman received his BFA in painting and printmaking in 2008 from the Columbus College of Art and Design in Columbus, Ohio, as well an MFA in painting with honors in 2012 from the University of Kansas. While completing his MFA, he taught undergraduate courses in drawing, painting and art concepts. He completed an eight-month-long artist residency in 2009 at the Chop Chop Gallery in Columbus, Ohio, where he also had a collaborative dual solo show with his older sister, artist Rachael Huffman, entitled, Space’n’Digestion. Born in 1986 in Newton, Kansas, Huffman is the youngest of five creative children and was reared in the historic city of Lawrence, Kansas.
#55: Andrew Huffman
Incoming RedLine resident artist Andrew Huffman hails from Kansas, bringing with him an up-to-the-minute artist’s-eye view and an arsenal of mediums, from wall projections to photographs altered through painting and drawing. Get to know Huffman as he speeds through the visual universe via his answers to the 100CC questionnaire
Westword: If you could collaborate with anyone in history, who would it be, and why?