Andy Lowrie
Baltimore, Maryland
Curriculum Vitae
Contact andy
@starbreakr
Website
Artist Statement
Working principally as a contemporary jeweler, I look at the world through the lens of adornment and decoration. From this perspective, I can approach all objects as bodies and view their outermost, decorative layer as adornment. My making has been concerned with the physical relationships of human bodies to objects and architectural spaces as evidenced by material changes that occur over time. I see this as a progression of my long-held interest in the objects we hold on to. The ones we use to communicate who we are and that continue to act as a monument to our existence when we are gone. The pieces included in this exhibition are shaped to resemble discarded paper paraphernalia, translated into sheet metal and coated with powder coat and the durable enamel paints I used to paint figurines in my childhood. As I work slowly through the process of bending and painting each one, I find ways for form and color to connect with my memories and experiences, which likely remain inscrutable without text or conversation, but hopefully solicits connection. While making the brooches in this group, I was thinking about anxiety and getting tongue-tied or choked-up so I tried to put a knot in my sheet metal. I didn’t associate this piece with the “pussybow” until I finished making it and decided to place it at the throat. That word, meant for a necktie, has insulting connotations but the form it describes is frequently worn by women and (mostly queer) men to empower and embolden through some wonderfully flamboyant decoration/adornment. The things we wear and meanings we attach to them are an endless source of fascination and inspiration to me.
Material Revelation Exhibit
Bio
Andy Lowrie is a jewelry artist who makes sculptural and wearable objects, works on paper and paint-based installations. He is an Australian maker, living and working in the United States. Andy pursues contemporary expressions of jewellery making that interrogate and reflect his life and experiences while drawing on the power of a wearable object to act as an extension of a maker/wearer’s intentions and desires. The potential of process and material as metaphor is a touchstone of his practice, expressed through his experimentation with surface finishes that include paint, powder coat and enamel. Andy Lowrie Jewellery is his eponymous line of handmade, sterling silver jewelry. His work has been exhibited in Australia, China, Europe and North America, and has been professionally recognised with awards from Brooklyn Metal Works in New York and My-Day By-Day Gallery in Rome. From 2020-2023 he was the inaugural Teach Fellow at the Baltimore Jewelry Center. He is currently an adjunct faculty member at Towson University, Johns Hopkins University and Montgomery College.
Thank you to Hilliard Family Foundation Inc. for sponsoring Material Revelation
