- As a means of “growing up as an artist,” Andy Giannakakis embarked on a vagrant journey last week within the walls of Georgia’s Lamar Dodd School of Art. The location itself is a paradox of sorts. While the infrastructure stands in direct opposition to Andy’s mission – to approach the expression in his art from an unacademic, untrained standpoint – it also bolsters the beacon of his craft. In Andy’s words, “art school is counter productive of being an artist.” In a sense, the formalities that it instills strips one’s mind of the ability to organically create void of the stigma of coloring within the lines. Potently defiant of this notion, Andy seeks to find out who he really is as an individual, & moreover as an artist, by approaching his paintbrush outside of the construct of rules. Though a risk that teeters at the ledge of uncertainty, he seeks to sieve through his own sensibility and unravel truth as best he can; in an epic and beautiful and ugly and lasting way.

In a non-stop, 24 hour guerilla painting session, Andy embraces questions about his own self sufficiency and the means through which he desires to embrace the world and depict the tangible manifestation of his thought; his art. By way of challenging both him self and his audience, Andy asserts that “the most important thing about art is letting people find different meanings for themselves.” By dismissing this confrontation with ones psyche, art becomes a simple product of easy consumption. In a sense, art too easy to understand ceases to be art. So, Andy paints in order to confront this challenge by the balls & explore the complexities of his mind while creating a labyrinth for onlookers to explore their own complexities through thought.

“The more technique you have, the less you have to worry about it. The more technique there is, the less there is.” – Picasso

By embracing the world through a visceral set of eyes, Andy, by means of his art, demonstrates an appetite for finding truths void of pretense, & quite frankly, the bull shit (excuse the french) that distracts most from the grasp of reality. By engaging inherent “emotion, fluidity, & feeling,” the ordinary becomes transcendent and points towards a greater truth.

(photos by Jeff Gess & Michael Harris)