Meet Andrew George

Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrew George.

Hi Andrew, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been bored by the ordinary, and what passes as “beautiful” or “interesting” has rarely engaged me. From an early age, this forced me to look elsewhere, be it upside down on the jungle gym or squinting my eyes and looking at colors and shapes in the classroom instead of at my teachers. An art class in 7th grade validated these impulses to look elsewhere for inspiration and helped me channel what I saw into creative avenues. From there, I started taking pictures with a camera (now I say I “make” pictures with a camera) and this proved to be the most effective means to share with others the way my eyes see. I went to college and then got an MFA, in the process getting a more formal education that actually enjoyed because I could choose my classes and in so doing, started to become acquainted with my inner world (that I began to realize informs everything I create.)

I started having shows of my work around 20 years ago, and since that time, I have been in around 20 international exhibitions, most recently in New York, Korea, and Japan (the last two where accompanying catalogs were published). My recent photography and interview project, “Right, before I die” traveled abroad seven times and attracted more than half a million visitors at its various venues. I’ve won numerous awards for my photographs and have appeared in The Huffington Post, Vanity Fair, CBS News, The Chicago Tribune, Stern, DesignTAXI, Art Ltd., Quartz, Daily Mail UK, The San Francisco Chronicle, El Mundo, De Standaard, The New Daily, Le Journal de la Photographie, Russia Today, BuzzFeed, The School of Life, Booooooom and Trendhunter, among others. My photographs are in more than 100 public and private collections.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
No, there is no smooth road. Despite one’s backgrounds, struggles and privileges (or lack of them), we all – especially artists – grapple with making sense of our purpose in life and yearning for significance in our actions and in our work. My life has been like a pinball machine where I’ve gotten bounced around and collided into bumpers, pivoted from the direction I thought I was heading in, and reoriented my pathway, only to have the velocity disrupted once again by forces beyond my control. Were it not for intuition and a willingness to accept the rapidity of change, I’d have permanent whiplash. Faith and right effort also come into play as anchors I’ve had to hold on to in order to escape entropy and to feel like I’m moving forward, even if only somedays by an inch or two…

Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
There are really only two approaches that I have to make pictures, and I enjoy them both equally- The first involves being someplace completely new to me where I can put my watch and cell phone away and literally get lost in a long walk and absorb everything I see. It doesn’t matter if I’m on a busy city street, an empty alleyway, a forest trail, the middle-of-nowhere in the countryside, the “good” part of town or not. I don’t really photograph scenery, still-lifes or people; I’m more fascinated by beautiful moments of shapes, lines, colors, and light that present themselves to me, almost by chance; the chance that I’m at a particular location with the light falling a certain way and also the chance that I’m relaxed and present enough to appreciate these patterns and serendipitous placements of things. I like to say that I take pictures of everything disguised as nothing.

What I seek out is the dimensionality of form and matter that somehow transcend themselves and create a feeling in me, and when I stop and marvel at the beauty of these found arrangements and feel the excitement, I know I’ve found something that I want to capture. Secondly, I am always in awe at how I can travel on the same route numerous times and somehow see something new and different. Generally, I take my dog to walk on the same street each morning and have done so thousands of times and yet, I’ll notice all sorts of new “moments” each time I pass by. Every walk on every day is truly different, but it takes looking, really looking around me to appreciate that. As a rule, I don’t make pictures that I’ve seen before in my own or anyone else’s work.

How can people work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
It’s so fulfilling to exhibit my work, especially the new murals because what I’m making cannot be conveyed on a small screen. A few months back, I exhibited my 100-foot wide photographic mural “Everything Reminds Me of Everything” in Seoul. It is comprised of 51 individually framed large prints, and seeing the work envelop me from all four walls in a square room of the museum was why I do this – I feel deep satisfaction in presenting my specific vision: how the world makes sense to me and sharing that with others. This can only really happen when the work is on display and is seen as it’s meant to be. Art has the mysterious and powerful capability to inspire viewers to create meaning and find connection, and I aspire to carry on this tradition that has impacted me my whole life. I’m always looking for new venues to show my work. I also sell prints through my gallery in NY – Eleventh Hour Art or on my website: invisiblegraffiti or IG: @invisiblegraffiti

Contact Info:

• Website: invisiblegraffiti.com
• Instagram: @invisiblegraffiti