Andrew Chalfen
Sentient Test Pattern
2021
ink on paper
unframed: 12"x9"
framed: 17"x13"

About the Work:

"Sentient Test Pattern" is part of a series of drawings I made during the Winter of 2020-21 in which I was exploring different compositional approaches using a more or less set number of design elements. Some of these drawings will be used in larger work that will involve ink transfer to a canvas, which will destroy the paper of the original drawing, leaving only the ink. A few drawings from the series have been rescued by collectors from a looming watery demise.

About the Artist:

I am a visual artist living and working in Philadelphia. I work mainly in acrylics but have been increasingly incorporating mixed media and three dimensional elements into my pieces. I am fascinated by patterns, how they ripple, radiate, refract, bloom, and cluster. The show I propose will feature recent works that allude to aerial views, cartography, architectural renderings, musical notation, urban-like densities, and other natural and man-made patterns, which soften pill out over edges, suggesting unseen continuations.

My process mirrors that of my songwriting and music arranging, involving the repetition of a small selection of formal elements, subtle variation, the timbre of color palate, rhythm, and randomization strategies. The viewer may not know what to focus on first, becoming overwhelmed and subsequently absorbed in the details, an experience reminiscent of mediation or a divine/psychedelic journey.

More recent abstract geometric pieces, including painted sculptures, explore themes of nostalgia, anxiety, climate change, play, and allusions to impenetrable data, all reflective of, and perhaps counter to, accelerating social and psychic instability in the world.

InLiquid, andrewchalfen.com

Buyer assumes all S&H costs