Andre Catanese
Catanese’s lush paintings recall the kudzu-laden landscapes of their upbringing in Virginia. Interested in how contemporary ideas of gender, race, and sexuality are deeply rooted in the death of the commons and privatization of land, Catanese’s paintings transform discarded landscapes into green spaces where plants and animals flourish. Catanese’s swirling compositions articulate their complex relationship to the American South and bring nuance to constructions of the self.
Andrew catanese
“The paintings pull from studies made in 2023 and 2024. The work began while visiting Georgia in 2023, while at an art opening at a friend’s gallery in South Atlanta. Next to the art center there was a towering mountain of garbage in a landfill. But you would never know, because every inch was covered in kudzu and other fast-growing plants that live in the South.”
"I've been interested in the idea of discarded places...where wild animals and plants flourish."
Catanese’s most recent body of work focuses on social interactions between land and people. Their paintings feature disregarded elements of landscapes such as drainage ditches, landfills, abandoned farms, buried oil pipelines, and other infrastructure, which become places of refuge and proxies for marginalized people and identities.
According to Catanese, “the paintings focus on the transportive feeling these places have and their ability to remind us we are a part of the natural world.”
Andrew Catanese
Andrew Catanese (b. 1993 Ann Arbor, MI) is a painter and sculptor from the American South. They earned a BFA in Studio Art at the Sam Fox School of Art at Washington University in St. Louis and an MFA a Stanford University. Catanese has shown their work in galleries and museums throughout the United States, including Johansson Projects (Oakland, CA), Maune Contemporary (Atlanta, GA), Macon Arts Alliance (Macon, GA), Banana Factory Arts Center (Bethlehem, PA), SOMArts (San Francisco, CA), and Gertrude Herbert Institute of Art (Augusta, GA). Artist residencies include The Creatives Project, Artist in Studio Residency in Atlanta, GA, Oak Spring Garden Foundation in Upperville Virgina, among several public art projects for murals and public sculpture. In 2021, they were awarded the prestigious Cadogan Scholarship that supports master of fine arts students. Catanese currently lives and works in Palo Alto, CA.
5 Standout Shows to See at Small Galleries This August | July 29, 2024 by Maxwell Rabb for Artsy
The paintings are characterized by Catanese’s expressive brushwork, made up of loose, textural marks that conjure a sense of movement…” LINK
Artist Talk with Tony Bravo: “A lot of the ways I relate to the natural word is through fluidity and movement which goes back to our conversation about queerness, and for that it I have a better understanding of myself in relation to everything else around me” LINK
Interview: Finding Inspiration on the Run | June 2022 by David Gleisner for janji.com
“Andrew’s work embodies his curiosity about the encounters that bring us closer to our natural origins. As an ultra mountain runner and Janji Field Team member, he indulges this curiosity with trail runs around his California home that connect him with members of his natural community, from snakes to black tail deer. We chatted with Andrew to learn more about his art, his running, and the myriad ways that they inform each other.” LINK