be2 Gallery Highlights Pittsburgh Artist Andi Irwin in First Solo Show
PITTSBURGH, Sept. 22, 2014 — (PRNewswire) — "Kiss My Apps," a premier of abstract painter Andi Irwin's most recent work, opens on September 26, 2014, and marks the first solo show for Lawrenceville's new, edgy be2 Gallery. Inspired by the omnipresence and proliferation of social media and computer apps touching every aspect of human interaction, Irwin interprets and weaves a multiplicity of phone, notebook and tablet applications into portraits, landscapes, signs and interactive building blocks.
"I have become obsessed with searching for an understanding and representation of the constantly changing language of social media and mobile devices as well as our relationships with the devices themselves," Irwin said. She began making app-art because of her love for colors and shapes but quickly was fueled by a hate/love love/hate affair with her cell phone as she more deeply explored its serious and playful applications.
"In a painterly style with intentionally imperfect handmade App inspired shapes and icons, dripping
with paints and materials she mixes, Andi successfully contrasts smooth shiny clean cold technology with rough, layered textured surfaces," notes Vicky A. Clark, Curator of be2. "In creating this series, Andi has delved artistically in a most intriguing way into our absorption with social media and taken it in a wholly original direction."
Clark is an art historian, whose experience includes work as a curator at the Carnegie Museum of Art and the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts. Her recent insightful and intimate study of the work of iconic Pittsburgh artist Robert Qualters, published earlier this year, received critical acclaim. be2 represents her first foray into the commercial gallery scene, where she aims to add edgier work to the already established Borelli-Edwards Galleries, creating a complementary symbiosis.
A graduate of Carnegie Mellon's School of Art, Irwin was drawn to the University and Pittsburgh by their connection with Andy Warhol, whom she had admired as she grew up in Manhattan. She continues to draw inspiration from Warhol as well as pop artists such as Jim Dine and Jasper Johns; text artists such as Mel Bochner, Christopher Wool and Barbara Kruger, and contemporary artists such as Damian Hirst, Yoko Ono and Jim Hodges. These influences are evident in pieces shown in Kiss My Apps.
Irwin paints in Pittsburgh in what is believed to be the first zero energy artist's studio in the city. A short film of her at work and studio can be seen at https://vimeo.com/95778335. For a preview of Kiss My Apps and more information, contact Tom Kurlander at 310-433-1637.
For more information about Andi Irwin, visit www.andiirwin.com. Follow Andi on Twitter and Instagram @andiirwinapps.
Contact:
Tom Kurlander
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