Andrea Maw
For Scottsdale, Arizona-based painter Andrea Maw, art runs deep in her family. Her grandfather was a painter of note in Germany in the early 1900s and Andrea studied with her mother, Ingrid Losch, a professional artist, whose painting career spanned 50 years in Vancouver, Canada, and greatly influenced Andrea’s interest, confidence, and passion for painting. She works in hyperrealism and realism as it best expresses her exacting nature and appreciation for detail. She therefore relies on high definition photography in order to be able to mine the detail, while still working on large-scale canvases.
Andrea shares, “For me to invest the time it takes to complete a larger work, I have to be moved by something that I am then driven to capture on canvas for my viewer to feel. Art is an act of moving energy from one through paint and canvas to another. I love the ethereal atmosphere of backlighting, the sharp immediacy of a scene through the transparency of glass and water, or the enveloping reflections and refractions be it from glass, gem or jewel. Rather than painting several iterations of a subject, I crave the challenge of a new way to capture the interplay of light and shadow so my subject matter continues to evolve, along with my skill. I am currently working on several canvases featuring the reflections of people on wet pavement as they bustle about in stormy weather. The subject matter is figurative and architectural, appearing abstract for the blustery puddled reflections, yet entirely in the style of hyperrealism for the detail of the wet pavement itself and it’s reflections.” Recently, Andrea began playing with NFTs. She says, “What I find most stimulating is that the idea of valuing, sharing, owning, and collecting a virtual work of art represents a major paradigm shift from the art world we’ve experienced. To me, NFT Art seems emblematic of the historic transformations we are all being faced with in every aspect of our lives and beingness. Life seems unsettled to say the least - creating NFT Art and navigating this virtual reality world provides me a reference to run parallel to other areas of my life - mainly reminding me to invent my future through creative play and exploration, rather than resisting change in fear. I’ve been navigating NFT Art by combining both virtual and 3D worlds by digitally enhancing an image of my original oil on canvas painting.” Andrea’s work has been shown in several exhibitions and is part of private collections throughout the U.S. Her work “Chandelier” recently won “Best in Show” at the Camelback Gallery’s International Realism Competition.
See more of Andrea’s work at andreamaw.com