Andrew Chalfen

I am a visual artist living and working in Philadelphia. I work mainly in acrylics but have been increasingly incorporating mixed media and three-dimensional elements into my pieces. I am fascinated by patterns, and how they ripple, radiate, refract, bloom, interact, and cluster. My works allude to aerial views, cartography, architectural renderings, musical notation, urban-like densities, and other natural and man-made patterns, which often spill out over edges, suggesting unseen continuations.

My process mirrors that of my songwriting and music arranging, involving the repetition of a small selection of formal elements, subtle variation, the timbre of the color palate, rhythm, and randomization strategies. The viewer may not know what to focus on first, becoming overwhelmed and subsequently absorbed in the details, an experience reminiscent of mediation or a divine/psychedelic journey.

More recent abstract geometric pieces, including painted sculptures, explore themes of nostalgia, anxiety, climate change, play, and allusions to impenetrable data, all reflective of, and perhaps counter to, accelerating physical, social, and psychic instability in the world.