I am a visual artist living and working in Philadelphia. I work mainly in acrylics but have been increasingly incorporating mixed media and three dimensional elements into my pieces. I am fascinated by patterns, how they ripple, radiate, refract, bloom, interact, and cluster. My works allude to aerial views, cartography, architectural renderings, musical notation, urban-like densities, and other natural and man-made patterns, which often spill out over edges, suggesting unseen continuations.
My process mirrors that of my songwriting and music arranging, involving the repetition of a small selection of formal elements, subtle variation, the timbre of color palate, rhythm, and randomization strategies. The viewer may not know what to focus on first, becoming overwhelmed and subsequently absorbed in the details, an experience reminiscent of mediation or a divine/psychedelic journey.
More recent abstract geometric pieces, including painted sculptures, explore themes of nostalgia, anxiety, climate change, play, musicality, fragility, physical and psychic fragmentation, and allusions to impenetrable data, all reflective of, and perhaps counter to, accelerating planetary chaos.
Artist Biography
Andrew Chalfen is a visual artist and musician living and working in Philadelphia. A 2021 solo show of recent work was featured at the Abington Art Center. 2020 was full of awards and his first showing at a museum, the Delaware Contemporary. In 2019 many of his pieces were featured at InLiquid's Hatch group show and at the Magic Garden's two-person show Patterns of Obsession, both in Philadelphia, He is the winner of the Bombay Sapphire Artisan Series Mid-Atlantic Regional for 2018 and his piece Vibration Lands was displayed at SCOPE Miami during the Art Basel/Art Miami fair.
Composing, recording, and performing rock, folk, and electronic music for nearly four decades, Chalfen has released eleven albums of original recorded music, toured the country in a van playing shows with his rock bands The Trolleyvox, the Wishniaks, and his current band, I Think Like Midnight, which performs original instrumental music.
Education
Continuing Education
2015 Fleisher Art Memorial, Philadelphia, PA Course in Oil Painting
2003 University of the Arts, Philadelphia, PA Course in Graphic Art and Digital Design
2001-2002 University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 3 courses in Graphic Art and Digital Design
Awards & Honors
2020 Delaware Contemporary, Wilmington, DE Popular Vote Award for Vibration Lands
Prisma Art Prize Finalist for Symphony Wave
Colored Pencil Society of America Creative Art Materials/Caran d’Ache Award for Distinction for You Are Here
2018 Bombay Sapphire Artisan Series Mid-Atlantic Regional Finalist
Bibliography
2020 Kostianovsky, Deborah, "On Hearing Wildflowers- Artist Spotlight on Andrew Chalfen," InLiquid.org, December 3, 2020
2021 Artfolio2021, Catalog Juried by Beatriz Esguerra
2017 Chalfen, Andrew Look Up Coloring Book, Thunder Bay Press, 2017 (a collection of 84 pen and ink drawings)
Collections
Collections nationally and internationally
Professional Experience
Album Cover Design • I Think Like Midnight “This Land Is Your Mind,” 2018 • I Think Like Midnight “Kompromat” Wilber Records, 2018 • I Think Like Midnight “Warm Seclusion Structure" Quadrapus Records, 2014 • The Trolleyvox “Your Secret Safe/Luzerne” Transit of Venus Records, 2008 • The Trolleyvox “Present the Karaoke Meltdowns” Transit of Venus Records, 2006 • The Trolleyvox “Leap of Folly” Groove Disques Records, 2002 • The Trolleyvox “Ephemera for the Future” Groove Disques Records, 1999
