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This is not a Drill

André Brik - 2024

Archive Mineral Pigment on Canson Rag Cotton Paper - signed limited edition - 1/20

58,00 cm height x 50,00cm width x 0,01 cm depth

USD 380,00

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Product code: 15245

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THE ARTIST

André Brik

“The pencil on the paper runs free, and finds common lines, formal coincidences, finds fits: I always seek to geometricize, and simplify to the maximum”

A still life is defined as an image predominantly of inanimate objects without movement – such as fruit, flowers, domestic items, utensils. The theme is commonly associated with academic art of the 19^th century, especially Baroque – though it was in the 17^th century that the term began to be used by the Dutch: the word Stilleven referring to depiction of the inanimate, or nature in its non-mobile form. The French later employed the words nature morte or objets immobiles for painting of inanimate things.

In the late 19^th century Paul Cézanne, one of the precursors of modern art, said: “I will conquer Paris with an apple” (– and he actually did!). Decades later Andy Warhol, with his tins of Campbell’s soup, played a significant part in the art of the 20^th century, by evoking the classic tradition of this theme.

Artist and illustrator André Brik finds the essential material for his creations in observation of the forms and colors of day-to-day things. Fruit, flowers, toys, similar objects – still life. He works with the shapes of and correlation between elements using croquis, perhaps, according to him, a legacy he brought from architecture. “The pencil on the paper runs free, and finds common lines, formal coincidences, finds fits: I always seek to geometricize, and simplify to the maximum,” he explains.

He continues this prior study up to the ‘frontier’ of figuration, a little before arriving at an abstract form. He takes this result of hand drawing as a starting point, and a role begins for the computer to formalize the work. Using a vector-based drawing program, he reassembles the image using superimposed levels of transparencies, shadows and elements of luster. The process is reminiscent of Velatura in painting, where translucent layers of paint are superimposed.

The result is stylized images in basic geometrical elements, acquiring a new visual meaning. His compositions in bright and contrasting colors have a subtle irony and refined humor, which he attributes to various influences – the theatre of the absurd, British nonsense humor, but above all the humor of the Brazilians, almost the only people, he says, whose sense of humor often involves the liberating attitude of laughing at one’s own fate.

André Brik was born in Curitiba in 1972, of Polish parents. He worked for some years as an architect, designing several buildings, but felt that the time between the creative process and its realization was long. He was looking for something more dynamic, not restricted by the limits of budget, legislation or structure that are typical of architecture. He therefore studied graphic design in New York – at Parsons, and the School of Visual Arts. Here he was influenced by the German Sachplakat advertising style of the early 1900s, and by Polish poster art with its sober elements, backgrounds in contrasting colors, visual puns and stylized geometry. Coming from a background in graphic design, he also found important artistic references in the vanguard art of the early 20^th century: the Bauhaus, Die Stijl, Suprematism, Surrealism, Dada and Art Deco. However, he also finds inspiration in Goya, Bosch, Klimt, Magritte, and more recently Wayne Thiebaud, Escher, Hopper, Norman Rockwell and Charley Harper.

He says he was born into a family of ‘geniuses’: his grandfather worked at Unesco; his father was top of his year in medical school; and his brother repeated this achievement aged only 15 – while the other brother was doing his doctorate at MIT, in Boston. He received his own share of admiration from drawing and creating.

He grew up among paintings, art books, exhibition catalogues, and – as it happens – comic books. When older, he needed to deviate from pure art to seek a certain financial stability. “The years in architecture, design and advertising created some resources, but tended to stifle my spontaneity”.

Andre Brik remembers that when he began to work in graphic arts he had to re-learn to create without the limitations imposed by his previous media, complying with a commercial objective or depending on approval of a third party. “I re-conquer the liberty to create without any creative bonds,” he says.

His career in art includes several collective and solo exhibitions in Brazil and other countries: the highlights are L’Arte Della Seta a Reggio Emilia at the Museo il Correggio, in the Palazzo dei Principi, em Corregio, Italy; and Celebrating Spring, at the Red Door Gallery in Clunes, Australia – both in 2017.

“Art provokes reflection,” he says. “It is not by chance that it is the first thing a totalitarian government tries to silence. In the situation of today, art is resistance.”

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