This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.
Ginestra (Cysisus scomparius) Violet Rye-Grass (Festuca perennis) Blue
Andrew Dadson
2021
Wild Ginestra, biodegradable milk paint (water, casein, chalk, limeston, indigo, alkanet, and cochineal)
Inkjet print mounded on Di-bond
180.5x136 cm
Wild grass, biodegradable milk paint (water, casein, chalk, limeston, indigo)
Inkjet print on Di-bond
180.5x136 cm
Andrew Dadson (1980) is interested in the natural environment and in particular the plants that make up the landscape. The Canadian artist concentrates his attention on rural species that, not counted among what might be described as “noble flora”, often pass unobserved. Using biodegradable pigments, the artist colors the plants using bright hues, giving them a new aesthetics, then photographs them close up, making them the focus of large-format photographs. Dadson created two works for the Frescobaldi Prize: Broom (Cytisus scoparius) Violet and Rye-Grass (Festuca perennis) Blue, dedicated to reflection on the land around CastelGiocondo. The hues selected by the artist take into account the city of Florence’s affinity for the violet color, while the choice of plants that grow in the fields emphasizes the close tie between the people of Central Italy and the culture and landscape, a powerful presence in Renaissance art, in which different plant species were often depicted in polyptychs and altarpieces.
The Artist
Andrew Dadson
Andrew Dadson 1980, White Rock, Canada. Andrew Dadson is a multidisciplinary artist who employs a variety of mediums including painting, photography and installation. His practice is grounded in conceptual and process-oriented methodologies and is consistently marked by its thick handling of paint where the layers push the parameters of the medium. Central to Dadson’s work is a deep interest in the social contracts shaping the natural environment, from which he creates artworks that investigate and reflect on the landscape and highlight a constantly changing environment. Well known for his large-scale photographs Dadson often depicts detailed close ups of plants hand painted with natural dyes that read as both monochrome painting and ethno-botanical documentation. Dadson lives and works on the unceded territories of the Squamish, TsleilWaututh and Musqueam peoples In Vancouver, Canada. He obtained a BFA in art at the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design.
The main solo shows include:
Daniel Faria Gallery, Toronto (2019), 313 Art Project, South Korea (2019), Contemporary Art Gallery, Vancouver (2017), and Galleria Franco Noero, (2017). Dadson will have a solo exhibition at Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles in the fall of 2021.