I make murals and illustrations that use texture, pattern and color to explore relationships: shape and edges, harmony and disharmony, novelty and stability. My images arise from a drawing-based form-making language involving photography, digital collage and layer-building. I owe much to artists of the Expressionist lineage, from Kokoschka to Neel; like them, I value the irrational and the absurd, play and intuition as modes of thinking and research, and paradox and complexity over the obvious answers. I make art to understand. I make art to ask questions.
Andrew Fearnside is a New Mexico-based artist guided by ongoing interests in psychology, social justice, pop culture and spiritual life. After completing a BFA in painting and drawing at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in his native Boston, he made paintings and performances, and found work as a designer, dancer, teacher and psychotherapist.
In Albuquerque — where he has lived since 2001 — he has produced numerous permanent public murals as private commissions, commercial assignments and through the regional public art programs. To produce this work, Andrew has collaborated with designers, architects, teenagers, neighbors, community organizations, and government officials. His murals can be seen at Los Alamos Mainstreet, Expo NM, Albuquerque's midtown Whole Foods, and Duke City BMX Arena; other public work has been featured in festivals, as temporary window displays, and in exhibitions throughout Albuquerque and, increasingly, far beyond.
Devoted to growing community, Andrew has been a teaching artist, working with Circo Globo to provide a safe creative space for youth to explore circus arts. For many years, he has led community-based immersive installation projects through a loose collective of local artists, the Unicorn Collective. And during the pandemic years, he operated a community-centered upcycled clothing enterprise called Mendwear. He continues to find ways to share authorship and benefits with fellow Albuquerque artists through creative projects, including a collective of professional muralists called Alchemy Walls.
Andrew creates award-winning books, zines and coloring books with his sister through their enterprise, Chimera Projects. Their publication O! Relentless Death! Celebrity, Loss, and Mourning received a 2019 Independent Publishers Book Award in the Independent Voice category.