I’d come across James at some point during the time I’d first maintained a studio in Kitchener, Ontario. It seemed an unlikely event insofar as despite knowing he was a painter he was also known to be elusive. And not just for the sake of it either, but rather because he was probably busy painting. Later, I would drop in from time to time to see him at his Ontario Street studio. He is pictured in what was his favourite sweater before it had been reduced to rags, wearing-out over the years. People who know him remarked that he didn’t look quite as stern as I’d painted him, but characteristically James noted that he was just happy his favorite sweater had been so memorialized.
– Andrew James McKay
Andrew James McKay’s practice is an exploration of the relationship(s) between the component and the whole. That is to say: What are the individual and specific details of the life we experience? How do we record and arrange those details to make a work which can tell of that experience?…
Andrew James McKay’s practice is an exploration of the relationship(s) between the component and the whole. That is to say: What are the individual and specific details of the life we experience? How do we record and arrange those details to make a work which can tell of that experience? What are the compositions of our communities as far as the relation of the individual to the collective experience?
McKay is a graduate of the honours arts programme at Emily Carr University of Art+Design. He was over the course of his studies the recipient of a number of merit scholarships, grants and awards. In 2019 he became the first student in the history of that institution to be awarded upon graduation, the Lieutenant Governor’s Medal for Inclusion, Democracy and Reconciliation. He has since gone on to a promising emerging practice, receiving a Canada Council Research and Creation grant in 2022.
