Biography


Andrew Wykes was born in the UK, just outside of London. He studied at Richmond upon Thames College and Epsom School of Art and Design, where he received his undergraduate qualifications in fine art. He completed his graduate studies at American University in Washington, DC, where he received his MFA in painting. He has taught art for forty years in schools and universities in the UK, Belgium, and the US. He is an Emeritus Professor of Painting from Hamline University in St Paul, where in 2011, he was awarded the Agnes Hulburd Conger Prize for Excellence in the Humanities.

Andrew has shown his work nationally and internationally in London and New York. His work is included in many private and public collections. He has been a recipient of five Minnesota State Arts Board Initiative Grants. In 2009, he was awarded a fellowship at the Ballinglen Arts Foundation in Mayo, Ireland, where he teaches workshops during the year. Andrew is one of the four featured artists in the celebrated feature-length film 'Painting the Place Between', a documentary film by Kristen Lowe, that follows the lives and ideas of four painters. He has also appeared on Sky Televisions Landscape Artist of the Year in 2021. In 2024, Andrew was selected for the Project Space Award from The Kolman & Reeb Gallery in Minneapolis. Current Gallery Representation:
Groveland Gallery, Minneapolis, MN. USA
Tregony Contemporary, Cornwall, UK



Artist Statement


As an established painter, I am suspicious of the reliance on words to support visual art. Today, there are far too many pretentious semiotics; on the other hand, there is a mass of sloppy sentimental paintings. For me, critical theory is not helpful, nor is passive acceptance.

I paint the geography of where I find myself, in the United States or overseas in Britain and Ireland. Naturally, as an immigrant to the United States, my work has developed, but the premise is still to make a balanced dialogue between the intellectual and emotional. These locales are eclectic and don’t always have any deep affinity for me, yet there can be a metaphysical or poetic bond. The absence of representative details in my work, I hope, grants these paintings an unexpected second life. I am aware of their capacity to suddenly flip to abstraction, for a moment losing their pictorial associations. One is always aware of straggling the line of the timelessness of perception and the task of translation to paint. There are moments of lucidity in which one's own visual store of past associations opens and causes personal or universal analogies. My work is made on-site and in the studio. The medium I work with varies – oil, acrylic, tempera, and college – however, the goal is always the same: to make an equivalent and authentic response to the places I have experienced and to then translate that experience of the three-dimensional landscape to the flat surface of my paintings.

“Emigrated from England to the United States and bringing a lively lineage of teaching and tradition with him, Wykes’ paintings are rooted in the act of seeing and dealing with the problem of translating subtle relationships to a flat surface. His observation is a struggle of seeking something constant by extracting from the ephemeral. The surface of his recent paintings (1995) is quite eloquent in the frankness with which it reveals its constructions"

Andrew Forge 1923 -2002
Teacher, artist, writer, art critic and former Dean of Painting at Yale School of Art.


I have recently enjoyed looking at the paintings of Andrew Wykes. I am impressed with his use of revery as an adjective for colour, which comes over well in the painting Carrowmore 2009. Wykes’ practice of measuring is evident in the work. I have certainly used measure but now recently abandoned it as it gets in the way, this is not the case in his work as it helps to keep the painting open and workable. He is an outstanding individual artist who paints in the mainstream of 20th-century English painting. He proves a superb craftsman, with great flair and genuine intuitive gifts. Painting in England is not going to stop suddenly now; it changes as clothes change depending on the fashion of the time.

Patrick George 1923 - 2016

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3huxNN8rcSA

Education
M.F.A 1997 Painting, American University, Washington D.C
Diploma 1982 Painting, Epson School of Art and Design, University of Surrey,
London, England
Diploma/Art/Design 1979, Richmond upon Thames College, London, England

*Grants/Awards

2024-25 Project Space Grantee Kolman & Reeb Gallery.
2023 Minnesota State Arts Award Community Involvement
2021 Creative Support for Individuals Grant Program. MSAB
2019 Minnesota State Board Artist Initiative Award
2018 The American Painting Award category: landscape 1st. Place
015 Hamline University Humanities Award
2015 Minnesota State Board Artist Initiative Award
2013 Minnesota State Board Artist Initiative Award
2011 Hamline University Hanna Award
2011 Agnes Hulburd Conger Prize Excellence in the Humanities
2010 Utrecht Painting Award.
2009 Fellow of the Balinglen Arts Foundation, Ireland
2009 Minnesota State Board Artist Initiative Award
2008 Hamline University Hanna Award
2007 Hamline University Deans Grant
2006 Hamline University Deans Grant
2006 The Fennel and Clark Travel Scholarship
2005 Sally P. Oswald Memorial Fund for Visiting Artists
1997 Helene M. Herbrun, M.F.A Scholarship
1994 Peter Sornners Painting Award

Solo Exhibitions
2025 Kolman & Reeb Gallery. Minneapolis
2021 'Parkscapes'. Groveland Gallery, Minneapolis, MN USA
2017 Ballinglen Arts Foundation, Mayo, Ireland.
2016 Hinterlands The Groveland Gallery, Minneapolis, MN USA
2015 Hinterlands The Fleming Gallery. London UK
2013 Land and Sea Paintings, Groveland Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
2011 Land Passages, Groveland Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
2009 New Landscapes, Groveland Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
2007 The Arts Guild, Northfield, MN
2005 Prince Gallery New York
1998 The Sommers Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
1997 The American University, Washington, D.C
1995 Spelthome Arts Center, London, UK
1994 The Chertsey Museum, UK
1993 The Square Gallery, London, UK

Selected Group Exhibitions
2022 Assemble 22. Tregony Gallery, portabella rd. London, UK
2021 Illuminate. Tregony Gallery, Tregony, Cornwall, UK2021
2021 Abstract Shapes. Tregony Gallery, Tregony, Cornwall, UK
2019 Hamline University Faculty show
2018 Minnesota State Arts Board, Immigrant Awardees Show
2016 The Blue Mountain Gallery, New York, USA. Juried show
2015 Water St. Gallery. MI.
2014 Catherine G. Murphy Gallery, St Kates University St Paul. MN, Near and Far:
Contemporary landscape painters
2014 Bowery Gallery. New York
2013 The Minnesota Museum of American Art. Painting the Place Between. Inaugural Exhibit
2012 Prince Street Gallery, New York
2011 Bowery Gallery. New York
2011 Prince Street Gallery New York
2009 The Courthouse Gallery, Ballinglen, Ballycastle, Mayo, IR.
2008 Mid West Paint Group
2008 Bowery Gallery 2008 National Competition, New York,
2008 Space and Place, St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN
2007 Hamline University St. Paul MN
2006 Drawing Show, Smithson Albright, London, UK
2005 Gonzales Gallery, Les Tapies, France
2005 Minneapolis Foundation Faculty Show, Minneapolis, MN
2004 Minneapolis College of Art and Design, MN
2003 Tom Childs Gallery, Norfolk, UK
2003 Mall Galleries, London, UK
1997 The Mary Graydon Gallery, Washington D.C.
1996 The American University, Washington D.C.
1995 The Royal Watercolour Society Show, Bankside Gallery, London, UK
1992 The Hopkins Center, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NJ

Collections
Dartmouth College, Dartmouth, NH, USA
Ballinglen Art Foundation, Mayo, Ireland, Archives
Les Tapies Arts and Architecture, France
Securian Cooperation
Leonard, Street and Deinard
Chertsey Museum, Surrey, UK
St Paul College, St Paul, MN, USA, Collection
Mayo Clinic Rochester MN
Center for Reproductive Health Minneapolis MN
Abbot Central. Minneapolis
Northfield Hospital, Northfield, MN
St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN
Abbot North Western Hospital, Minneapolis
The Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN
Northfield Public Library. MN

Employment
2023 Professor Emeritus
2016 Professor. Chair of Studio Arts and Art History Department. Hamline University, St Paul, MN
2014-2015 Professor of Studio Art, Hamline University, St Paul, MN.
2009-2014 Associate Professor of Studio Art, Hamline University, St Paul, MN.
2000-2009 Assistant Professor in Studio Art, Hamline University, St Paul, MN.
1999-2000 Assistant Professor in Studio Art, Hamline University, St Paul, MN
1999-2000 Instructor of Art, Minneapolis College of Art and Design, Minneapolis
1998-2000 Assistant Professor St. Olaf College, Northfield, MN

Professional Services
2017 visiting artist University of Wisconsin-Stout.
2014 Catherine G. Murphy Gallery, St Kates University St Paul. MN, Near and Far:
Contemporary landscape painters Artist Panel.
2014 Panellist for the FY15 Arts Learning program. Minnesota State Arts Board.
2014 Juror for painting applicants Minnesota State Fair
2011 Mentor, Boston University. MFA program in painting
2012 Panellist for film Painting the Place Between. MCAD. MN
2009 Panellist Minnesota State Arts Board October 2010
2008 Juror: Normandale College, Student Exhibition
2007 Curator: Urban-Rural and Distant Spaces, Hamline University, St. Paul, MN
2002 Curator: Hamline University Faculty Show
2002 Juror: University of Wisconsin, La Crosse, and Student Exhibition
Current Gallery Representation:
Groveland Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
Tregony Gallery Tregony, Truro, Cornwall, UK
Elected member of the Mid-West Paint Group.

Film
Andrew Wykes is one of the four featured artists in the feature-length film Painting the Place Between,
a documentary film by Kristen Lowe, that follows the lives and ideas of four painters whose work
engages the Minnesota landscape. Premièred at the Fitzgerald Theater, St Paul December 2013


Press Reviews/ publications
LandEscape Now! Biennial Edition,
2024 Blue Mountain show New York Review http://paintingperceptions.com/review-of-blue-mountain-gallery-group-show/ Article "Emergence" Coming out of our teachers, the places we loved and how we find ourselves now.
by Andrew Wykes, published in Artist on Art Magazine. January 2015
• Featured on PBS Minnesota Originals. Television
• Sixty-page artist catalogue, Published 2010, title: Andrew Wykes, text by Lewis and Tozer,
ISBN 978-1-4507-1581-2
• Inclusion in a published book, title: 100 Midwestern Artists for Schiffer Publishing, 2011 ISBN-13: 978-0764341052•
An article in American Artist Magazine January 2011
• Inclusion in Utrecht Catalogue 2011
• The New York Sun, Article by ALIX FINKELSTEIN June 08
• Minneapolis Tribune, article by Mary Abbe, February 09 and 13
• St Paul Pioneer Press, December 02 and 13
• City Pages, review of Land and Sea Painting. by Jessica Armbruster, April 2009 illustration
• Minneapolis Star Tribune, A Museum is Re-born, article by Mary Abbe, Dec 6, 2012
• The Daily Telegraph, London, article Artist t