The Art of Andrew Giffin


Andrew Giffin was born in Saint John, New Brunswick in 1960. He left the Maritimes in 1981 to study art, and received his Bachelor of Fine Arts with honors from the University of Manitoba in 1986.

Giffin's paintings are in private and corporate collections across Canada and the United States. However, his art isn't limited to paintings. His commercial ventures include building large-scale sculptural landscapes and waterfalls from concrete, props for the film industry as well as producing specialty finishes, such as stone-like sculptural walls, for homes and businesses.

A large-scale concrete sculptural landscape and waterfall by Andrew Giffin
Andrew Giffin's art has expanded into commercial and home designs.

I am an artist deeply influenced by his natural surroundings. Originally from the Maritimes, I moved to the province of Manitoba in 1981. I left behind a world whose intimate coastlines, rolling hills and meandering streams gave way to a boundless prairiescape with impossibly immense skies, and a northern wilderness with mile upon mile of sprawling lakes and primal forest.

When I tackle a landscape painting today, my aim is to communicate not just the physical detail, but the atmospheric elements, the hidden forces that permeate the land and air and determine the quality of light, and our emotional response to the subject. A good landscape rendering is an environmental snapshot, a captured moment conveying palpable hints of an actual place in a specific time. The hour of the day, the temperature, even moisture levels, should the theory be as readable to the viewer as the depicted topographical detail.

The Dancer
 As a sculptor, I try to push barriers. I delight in recombining found materials into whole new objects, altering the DNA, so to speak, of discarded natural or synthetic materials to create fresh associations and new meanings. I am always experimenting with new framing formats for my landscapes, applying sculptural techniques to explore different ways of augmenting the two-dimensional image and its effect.
Bright Fish Early Return (ag_010) - This painting is partially three-dimensional. The upper portion of the river is 1¼” higher than the lower portion. The waterfall and rocks are carved material.

Elsewhere, when I undertake portraits, figurative studies or still-life interiors, I am always conscious of the play of abstract elements in each case. The shapes, relative densities and linear forces that describe a given setting - these are qualities whose manipulation in the construction of an image can add dramatic new meaning to the simplest subject.

As an artist I make no apology for wanting to spread my energies across such a wide spectrum, for embracing so many different materials, mediums and subjects. My eclectic impulses may be a source of frustration for those critics who insist on ready categories and labels for art, but I believe diversity is an essential virtue in this age of over-specialization. By embracing variety, the art remains fresh, and the artist more readily open to change and discovery.

Andrew Giffin

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