Andras Nagy-Sandor
Overview
“My practice is predominantly an attempt at unpicking the aspirations and ambivalences within my masculinity.” - Andras Nagy Sandor
Andras' practice is predominantly an attempt at unpicking the aspirations and ambivalences within his masculinity. He examines vulnerability, the desire for protection and support, the relationship between technology and the body and experiences of cultural-shock by employing body armour as a symbolic visual device within his work.
For Andras, body armour has become a fluid metaphor that stands in for embodied hybridity and the relationship between the encased body and the external world. The dichotomous relationship between hard and soft, fixed and fluid, structured and chaotic, as emblemised by armour, is at the heart of Andras’ practice. It helps keep balance between representational elements and abstraction that at times folds into pattern. Automatic drawings fuel this process, often leading to paintings on canvas, plywood, paper and the wall featuring anthropomorphic, sometimes multi-headed, beings that float between cultures and identities.
Through his work, he does not seek to celebrate the concept of armour, instead it becomes a focal point around which to gather personal experiences of vulnerability, a yearning for shelter, and a contextual framework that offers both a limitation and a false boundary to transgress. His works draw on a particular frame of reference including memories of Hungarian folktales told to him by his mother, visuals and narratives from science fiction, comic books and anime, and a cultural impetus to imbue inanimate objects with rich histories and providences – the idea that everything has a story.
Biography
Andras Nagy-Sandor is a Hungarian artist based in London, UK. In 2022, he graduated from an MFA in Fine Art Painting at the Slade School of Fine Art, following on from receiving his BA in Fine Art from Newcastle University in 2018. He has presented two previous solo exhibitions: TEASE (Hew Hood Gallery, London, 2022) and Bizz bennem/Trust me (Fest; Tisztit Gallery, Budapest, 2022).
His work has featured in a number of group exhibitions with galleries and project spaces including: Hew Hood Gallery, London (2023 and 2022); Hypha Studios, London (2023); STUDIO WEST, London (2022); VO Curations, London (2023, 2022 and 2020); Boisdale of Bishopgate, London (2022); ASC Gallery, London (2022 and 2020); Terrace Gallery, London (2021); White Conduit Projects, London (2019); Abject Gallery, Newcastle (2019); GENERATORporjects, Dundee (2018); Vane Gallery, Newcastle (2017). His work was also presented at the London Art Fair by Artistellar Gallery, London in 2023.
He has received multiple awards including the STUDIO WEST NOW Introducing 2022 Art Prize (runner up), the Mary Rishgitz Award, Slade School of Fine Art (2022), the Hatton Prize (2018) and was Shortlisted for the Young Contemporary Talent by the Ingram Collection (2018). In 2021, he undertook the Colart Residency, London.
He also has extensive experience as a curator and educator. He has been a visiting artist at Newcastle University and Camberwell UAL and was the co-producer of an art workshop and lecture at Cyprus College of Art alongside Julianna V. Berta. He has co-organised project hu X HOXTON 253 Residency and co-curated a 2020 exhibition Slade Runner along with orgnaising the hu/Hungarian Touring Exhibition in 2017/18.
Works
