Artist Information
Artist
Andrew WooldridgeRole
PainterDate made
circa 1989Time Period
20th CenturyNotes
ARTIST STATEMENT
“I treat my canvas like a stage set, with simplified shapes and forms, deliberately placed to produce an artificial landscape. I try to convey the feeling we have when watching the curtain rise in a darkened theatre auditorium, when, for that brief moment, we suspend disbelief and allow ourselves to be transported into an alternative reality.”
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Born in Egypt, Andrew Wooldridge is an established Canadian artist raised and educated in Birmingham and Hereford, England. He did Royal Army Medical Corps illustrator training for three years, working as an R.A.M.C. illustrator for over a decade. He lived and exhibited his first works in Israel, later moved to Australia following up with further studies at the Southampton College of Art and Design.
In 1984 he immigrated to B.C. and began his west coast career as an artist and teacher. He did a series of large murals for the Victoria Downtown Association and in conjunction with Alcheringa Gallery, traveled to New Guinea to paint a series on the life and myths of the Sepik River region, and later returned to Australia to paint the first ‘Waterfront Series’. Wooldridge co-created "The 2 1/2" in 1990 with painters Ken Faulks and Marie Stevens, initiating gallery exhibitions in 1991. In 1997 he joined the Victoria College of Art and Design Faculty, and in 2007 was elected as a lifetime "Artist in Residence" at "Painters at Painters Lodge" in Campbell River, B.C. He has exhibited in Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Canterbury and London, England.