Carlos Andrade: Mixed-Media Monotypes, 2009 – 2016
This online exhibition of tactile, mixed-media prints by Colombian-American artist Carlos Andrade is featured on Artsy.net
Andrade’s distinctive unorthodox approach to printmaking is evident in his use of fabrics, meshes, cording and plastics as textural, linear and color elements, combined with traditional relief and collagraph techniques. The exhibition includes several large diptych prints. Works made at Manneken Press from 2009 – 2016 are shown, and most are available for purchase.
Known for incorporating unusual materials into his prints, Carlos Andrade approaches the monotype medium fluidly and intuitively, ignoring many of the conventions of printmaking. He has utilized industrial fabrics, meshes, and even plastics alongside traditional media, creating a vernacular visual language. “Festones” – the colorful, triangular plastic flags attached to strings typically seen fluttering in long garlands around open air markets and street fairs in various parts of the world – were among the materials Andrade used in his most recent prints. Beginning by collaging the festones onto sheets of paper to make compositional and color elements, he formed the bases onto which various shaped relief plates were printed. In the finished prints the festones’ range of transparent colors overlap to create new colors, their triangular shapes, wrinkles, attached strings and stitching add additional texture and linearity to the compositions, and the ink sits atop the smooth impermeable plastic, having been absorbed into the rougher paper surface. Adjectives such as vibrant, playful and dynamic come to mind when looking at Andrade’s monotypes.
A long history of collaboration
Although Carlos Andrade’s history with Manneken Press is long, his collaborations with Master Printer Jonathan Higgins date back to the late 1990’s when the two began working together at Galamander Press, Higgins’ studio in New York City. Carlos moved back to Colombia in the aftermath of 9/11 but they renewed their working relationship in 2009, and Manneken Press published Andrade’s monotype projects in 2010, 2012, 2015 and 2016, creating many beautiful, tactile and unusual prints. View all available monotypes by Carlos Andrade here.
About the artist
Carlos Andrade, born in Cali, Colombia in 1963, creates works in painting, printmaking, installation and video, and also designs furniture, objects, architectural spaces and environments. Andrade’s work has been exhibited in the United States, Europe and South America, and is included in the collections of the US State Department, Reader’s Digest Association, New York Public Library, and Museo de Arte Moderno La Tertulia. He has had recent solo exhibitions at Lugar a Dudas; and Galeria Jenny Vila in Cali, Colombia, and collaborative exhibitions at Experimental Intermedia in Ghent, Belgium and New York. Andrade created a major installation for El Museo Arqueológico La Merced, also in Cali, in 2013. Carlos Andrade currently lives and works in Cali, Colombia.
“Carlos Andrade: Mixed-Media Monotypes, 2009 – 2016” is featured from November 3rd 2018 through January 15th 2019.
