Andrea Leavitt is a photo-realism oil painter
La Jolla, California artist Andrea Leavitt is an oil painter whose artworks are characterized by jewellike, translucent colors, lack of texture, high contrasts between light and dark, mystery. Because the brushstrokes are not evident and because of the lack of texture of most of the paintings, her paintings are often mistaken for photographs. The paintings have a calming, meditative quality that draw theviewer in, giving their eyes a place to rest and a respite from digital fatigue and the everyday “noise” of life.
Andrea uses the technique of the Dutch and Flemish Masters, in which very sheer, thin layers of oil paints and glazes are alternately applied resulting in translucent and jewel-like colors. This laborious process was used by Vermeer, Rembrandt and Mark Rothko to create luminous colors due to the light diffusing through the layers. It is a laborious process requiring each layer is left to dry before the next is applied, building up the canvas. Typically, her artworks have 20-43 layers, although the finished artwork appears flat and textureless. On average, it takes four to nine months to produce each painting regardless of the size.
Andrea has a very organic painting process that begins by seeing something that inspires her to paint, and photographing it. After manipulating the photograph and transferring the image, her paint brush becomes her drawing tool, obliterating major parts of the original photograph, adding to it, and creating something new images and new worlds. For example, a small anemone in an extremely small acquarium tank can evolve into a nine foot underwater landscape. Andrea lets the act of painting take over, with the evolving painting instructing her about what to do next. The ending image is unknown to her until she determines the artwork is complete. During the act of painting, an image vastly different than the original photograph evolves and is revealed to her, so that only during the process of creating the painting does she learn what the image will be. Although her paintings have a photographic quality and appear hyper-realistic, much of what you see in them exist only in her imagination. She playfully invites to guess what is real and what is fantasy?
Paintings in her ocean series are permanently installed at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California San Diego.
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