ABOUT ANDREW

Inter-disciplined arts-worker, Andrew Clapham operates within the diversity of current art practice, as if he were a peer of the Renaissance artists of the past. Navigating multiple approaches with energy and verve, Clapham’s primary discipline of print-media informs his creative decision-making across a carefully controlled range of methods. Holding a Bachelor of Fine Arts (with Honours) and a Masters degree in communication design. He is founder of AMCD studio, a design-focused enterprise working for private and public institutions and holds teaching positions at RMIT University. Printmaking underpins Clapham’s visual and conceptual production; he perceives this discipline as an intersection between art and design. Informed by printmaking’s historical relation to commercial production and its significance as a creative technology in the visual arts, Clapham is able to maintain a precise position, while working on both commercial and creative projects. This versatility is reinforced by his stylistic exploration of abstraction.

Clapham’s aesthetic is determined by multiple defining principles, including abstract image creation, activist approaches, and re-presentations of the altered landscape, interpreted through basic forms, typography, and print. Hybridised creative methods define Clapham’s strategy. He characterises this approach through the definition of the Art Worker; artist, designer, printmaker and illustrator are all functions within this collective term. Such broad specialisation is underpinned by the merging of craft and design or traditional printmaking with cutting edge computer processes.

Andrew has exhibited widely in Australia, significantly, in the prestigious RMIT School of Art Gallery and the Melbourne based printmaking hub, Port Jackson Press. He has been a finalist in numerous art prizes, including, but not limited to, the Swan Hill Print and Drawing Acquisitive Award. Clapham has also developed large scale public art projects within the City of Melbourne, Moreland Council and Stonnington Council in Victoria. His print work has enabled projects with significant studios, such as print collaborations with the internationally-focused Studio Ongarato and Negative Press, a publisher of limited editions and artists’ books. Adding to Clapham’s professional output, he also holds a board membership position at the Sunshine Print Artspace.

Inter-disciplinary artistic approaches enable Clapham to diversify his creative output and extend his professional network. This hybridisation and multi-faceted skill-set position Clapham as an artist of this time, exploring the new paradigm of decentralisation in an ever-expanding artistic network. The definition of Art Worker is an apt cipher for Clapham’s creative practice. As a dedicated studio artist, activist, professional illustrator and designer, Clapham’s unique position creates a strong foundation to explore and respond to new developments in an environment of accelerating change.