PAT ANDREA
C O N V E R S A T I O N
WITH THE MASTER
OF
THE NEW SUBJECTIVITY MOVEMENT
Nazli Kok Akbas
Art Editor, Geneva-Switzerland
The exhibition PAT ANDREA, “La Visite Surprise” at the Sonia Zanettacci Gallery generated a real buzz during Geneva Art Week in September. The renowned Geneva-based gallery has created a wonderful surprise for all art lovers and the artist’s devoted collectors. I had the pleasure of meeting Pat Andrea at the Sonia Zanettacci Gallery on this special occasion.
At first glance, Pat Andrea captivates his interlocutor with his vibrant energy.He is very attentive to each detail around him and records them with the speed of lightning.
Andrea is a tireless painter who is obsessed with every detail and never stops searching for the contemporary psyche of human existence and its psychology.Pat Andrea was born in The Hague in the Netherlands in 1942. Son of illustrator Metty Naezer and painter Kees Andrea, he studied at the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague and quickly emerged as a leading figure in post-war Dutch figurative art. Throughout his 50-year career, he has occupied a distinctive position among late 20th century figurative painters, reintroducing emotion, psychology, and narrative into painting after decades of abstraction and conceptualism.
Pat Andrea, Alice in Wonderland, Private Collection
After discovering Pat Andrea’s masterful drawings for the Alice in Wonderland album, how could anyone not be a huge fan?
Andrea is a master at creating enigmatic theatrical scenes charged with psychological and erotic ambiguity.He is a magical realist, his art exists between reality and nightmare.Pat Andrea’s Alice in Wonderland series is a prime example of his masterful creation of his magical realism. He transforms a cultural myth into an intimate, subjective theatre populated by figures that are simultaneously familiar and alien, innocent and dangerous.Andrea, like Francis Bacon, examines the physicality and vulnerability of the human form. He distorts human body as means to express internal turmoil and existential tension.
Pat Andrea,Alice’s People 1,2024.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll are among the world’s most illustrated books. The character of Alice has been depicted thousands of times by different artists.Pat Andrea’s depiction of Alice is not about Wonderland, but about the psychological terrain of fear, fantasy and identity of a myth that makes Alice more contemporary than ever.Andrea’s portrayal of Alice is unique. In each painting, Alice is depicted as a different person — she is never the same. By masterfully bending hyperreality and fantasy, Andrea has made Alice immortal!
Pat Andrea, Les Courtisanes,2020
Pat Andreas’s drawings are precise and sculptural, recalling classical realism and the technique of the Dutch Academie. Yet the compositions defy logic: bodies twist, float and fall, and the surrounding space becomes fluid and unstable. The tension between a realistic depiction and an impossible, dreamlike situation gives his paintings a theatrical intensity that is deeply appealing, and this is something that is evident in the way that he uses color, shape, and line to create compositions that are both captivating and thought-provoking.
Pat Andrea, Low moon over the etruscan coast, 2017-2018
ANDREA’S WOMEN,
INHABIT A SURREAL TERRITORY WHERE BEAUTY MEETS MYSTERY;
The female figure is central in Pat Andrea’s art that carries deep symbolic meaning. His Female depictions are not only a subject but the core of his story telling which represents a complex mixture of desire, fragility, strength, and danger. In his paintings, women often appear nude, contorted, or suspended in ambiguous spaces, expressing power and vulnerability. The female protagonists in Andrea’s work embody love, violence, freedom and fear. Andrea’s portrayal of women reflects the inner contradictions of the contemporary female figure.
His works combine black humour, macabre visions and eroticism in questioning the power of images and their ability to reveal the unconscious. For Andrea, women are not merely subjects; they are a sovereign force and the mistresses of the enclosed, absurd spaces in which he places his characters.
When I asked Pat Andrea about his latest works, he excitedly explained that the 34 small-scale drawings he had completed were made with graphite and charcoal and depicted his experiences in Argentina following the military coup. These pieces capture the essence of Argentinian life, blending literature and painting in a masterful way. The drawings are accompanied by texts from the renowned writer Julio Cortázar. Like cowboys in Westerns, Argentinians have their own “gauchos”, who live in the countryside, and conflicts involving knives are common. Andrea has incorporated everything he loves about Argentina into the drawings, including tango, courageous gauchos, the Argentinian way of daily life, and, of course, women.
The art lovers will continue to be amazed by Pat Andrea’s tireless energy and magical storytelling!
My sincerest thanks, dear Pat Andrea!
