Robert Andrade

Robert Andrade Robert Andrade was born in Southern California. He received his BFA from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and MFA from Cornell University. Andrade currently resides in San Diego as an artist and educator. Andrade has exhibited throughout the United states including Chicago, New York City, Southern California and Dallas, TX. More recently, he has lectured at Virginal Commonwealth University and finished an exhibition entitled PHANTOM GARDENS FORTIFIED CITIES (monuments) in collaboration with Timothy Earl Neill.

Artist’s Statement

My research practice consists of relating the past to the present by considering issues related to architecture, philosophy, urban planning, and history. I am also concerned with spatial politics and how power plays a role in the structures and symbols which encompass our everyday lives. I work individually and collaboratively both within the gallery and in public space. I produce work using photography, video, graphic design, sculpture, installation and more.

I want to prompt my audience to be aware and critical of the built environment, be it real or image based. I want to confront the viewer but I am not trying to convince. I do not claim to “know” but instead I am posing a question to be considered. One which asks that you rethink, even for a moment, what you have come to know, what you have come to believe and reconsider if there is or could be something going on beneath the surface.

Phantom Gardens Fortified Cities w/Timothy Earl Neill

Phantom Gardens Fortified Cities is an ongoing project which began in early 2012. This project constitutes drawings, documentary and commercial style photography, computer renderings, scale prototype models, and sculptures. Our project implicates both the archetypes of public squares and formal gardens as well as engaging contemporary public spaces with the emphasis on the shopping mall and its inherent private characteristics. Our method of working involves site surveying these “public spaces” which act as society’s modern day acropolis and main intersections of interaction. Our examination focuses on what lies beneath the surface of the polished veneer; in these fantastic architectural settings; where commercialization and violence coincide with the entanglement of public/private. Our work shows these settings as being masked by a false sense of complete perfection, driven by disillusionment.