Andrea was raised with creative parents who made sure she had ample opportunity to experience the arts young. When Andrea was fifteen she brought a painting home, from her high school art class, that she wanted to work on over the weekend. On a wintery Saturday morning, she got up and started painting. The sun rose and set while she painted, and she never noticed. Andrea was so engrossed in her work that time disappeared. That experience was so striking to her, that she made the decision, at age fifteen, to be an artist.

Andrea is inspired by both the beauty and destruction of nature. The seasonal changes in color, the gnarled roots of a weather worn tree, or the geometric patterns found in blooms around the garden— the nature that surrounds us and the nature found in us are an endless source of inspiration.

Early in her art career, Andrea relied heavily on sketching, visual studies, materials exploration, and documentation of the creative process.

In her late twenties, Andrea was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis bringing constant change and disruption to her life. Over time, Andrea’s changing reality resulted in a shift to her art making practice.

Intuitive engagement with the creative process, while experiencing a fluctuating lived experience, resulted in a strong focus on the present, finding a state of flow, and actively engaging Chance as an art material.

Responsive art making allows Andrea to actively engage the changes happening in her body, by an ever changing disease, within the art making process. Allowing herself the freedom to consistently adapt and discover can be seen in her dynamic textural surfaces.