Saturday, May 5, 2018

Artist of the day, May 5: Aelita Andre, 11 years old, Australian painter (abstract expressionism)

Aelita Andre (9 January 2007) is an Australian abstract artist known for her Surrealist painting style and her young age. She began to paint when aged nine months, and her work was displayed publicly in a group exhibition shortly after she turned two. Her first solo exhibition opened in New York City in June 2011, when she was four years old.

Andre's mother, believing her daughter to be a child prodigy, showed some of Andre's paintings to a Melbourne-based art curator when the girl was 22 months old. Impressed with the work, the curator agreed to include it in a group exhibition in the Brunswick Street Gallery, and he began advertising the show with Andre's paintings before he learned of her age. Although he was surprised, he kept his promise to display the work. The show opened shortly after her second birthday. Several months later, Andre and her parents visited Hong Kong, where she sold her most expensive painting to date for $24,000.

Art critics have noted Andre's work, classified as abstract expressionism, for its employment of the Surrealist techniques automatism and accidentalism. She paints with acrylics and often adds three-dimensional objects, including bark, twigs, and feathers, to the canvases. Buyers of her art at her New York show commented favourably on the paintings' simplicity and richness in texture. A number of major news sources, including Time, the BBC, The Washington Post, The Sydney Morning Herald, ABC News, and the New York Post, have generally responded favourably to Andre's work and to her early success. Several of them have compared her to Jackson Pollock, Salvador Dalí, and Pablo Picasso. At least one other, The New York Times, acknowledged her widespread notoriety but commented that her paintings "are hardly novel from a formal vantage, nor do they provide added meaning below the surface." It also noted that although her 2009 exhibition in Melbourne was not at a vanity gallery, the Agora Gallery's pay-for-show operation generated controversy about the legitimacy of her international fame. Nevertheless, the interest that collectors and the media showed in her exhibition at Agora resulted in every painting in the show being sold within two weeks, indicating that the show contributed to the growth of her international reputation.

© 2018. All images are copyrighted © by Aelita Andre. The use of any image from this site is prohibited unless prior written permission is obtained.



Aelita Andre

Aelita Andre, opening show

Aelita Andre, studio

Aelita Andre, home

Terrier, at the age of 2

The Cloud Man, at the age of 2



At the age of 4

At the age of 4

Out of this world, at the age of 5

The Fiery Flames of Stalagmite Caves, at the age of 6

at the age of 7

Sketch, at the age of 6

Her art at the Russian Academy



2014, This





























Asteroid





Butterfly Nebula 1, detail







Cosmic Ocean

Cosmos 3



Eagle Nebula

Escape from the Cosmic Zoo



Island Princess

Nikka

Pangea

Rainbow Dinosaur Land

String city masks

Swirling Starlight #3'



The Golden Pearl Unicorn in Space_

2017, The infinite world

3 violins

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