BERTRAND DELACROIX GALLERY is pleased to present “I R R E A L I S M”, a solo exhibition of new works by internationally acclaimed Dutch master painter PAT ANDREA. This is Andrea’s first exhibition with Bertrand Delacroix Gallery, although in his forty-year career he has had hundreds of exhibitions worldwide including four retrospectives. From 1988 – 2007, he worked as an illustrator for Playboy Magazine. His work appears in some of the most prestigious collections in the US and abroad, including the MOMA (New York), Centre Georges- Pompidou (Paris), FNAC (Paris), Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (Buenos Aires), HaagsGemeentemuseum (The Hague), the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), and the Playboy collection.

Sexuality, fertility, fear and desire are conjured in Pat Andrea’s magical realist and neo-expressionist paintings. They are playful yet dark, raw yet delicate depictions of women and men in life and death. Andrea’s work mostly features Argentinean women, as he is drawn to their passion and dominance. Their presence sends an emotional surge through each of his canvases. In describing Andrea’s work, Anna Printezi, curator of Greece’s Frissiras Museum stated:

The love-making heroes of Pat Andrea may cause the pompous to laugh or, again, they may bring a smile to the viewer who witnesses the joy of realization and redemption, the joy of sexual pleasure._

Nevertheless, in no way does Pat Andrea lecture on matriarchy, nor is he a naïve hedonist. His painting seems like a prayer to the mother-goddess of spontaneous life and love. He urges us to accept our physical needs and enjoy our natural instincts, enthusiastically revealing the truth he has discovered…

It is Pat Andrea’s instincts that drive him. A natural draftsman, he begins each painting with a sketch, a drawing composition, which is born from his rich imagination. Andrea’s sharp vertical and horizontal lines and figures are startlingly erect; his colors inspired by the vibrant palette of Latin America.

Andrea was born in The Hague in 1942, and attended the Royal Academy of Art there from 1960 – 1965. He was a professor at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-arts in Paris from 1998 – 2007, but left teaching to continue painting. He now spends his time living and working in Paris, Buenos Aires, and The Hague with his Argentinean wife, who is also an established artist on her own, as well as his two children.

View the catalog online here: http://www.bdgny.com/assets/2012/10/Pat-Andrea-IRREALISM-Catalog-2012.pdf