Robert Andrew | Data Stratification

My research investigates denied and forgotten personal and family histories. As a person who has a connection to different lineages, I am choosing to move between them by constantly cross-referencing the old and the new. In my artwork, I bring together two distinct aspects. One aspect of my work is to explore ways to use open-sourced, programmable technologies as physical technologies to create visual artworks. The other is my engagement and story-telling as an artist with Australian Indigenous heritage.

My work combines highly refined, programmable technological machinery that erodes, exposes substrates, builds stories and creates residues. These works manifest as visually scraped back and built up palimpsests that reference technology, natural materials and artefact. Split between old and new, I explore my identity and history with the use of contemporary technology. I use earth pigments, ochres, rocks and soil to build stories of relationship to land and culture and to mine historical, cultural, political and personal events that have been ignored, buried and distanced by the dominant paradigms of our western culture.