Andrew Coates

Andrew Russel Coates drew sports cars, superheroes and schematics of complex underground habitats below Snoopy’s doghouse during a bucolic childhood on a small farm in rural northeast Pennsylvania until he was directed away from art by the practical powers that be and entered the Pennsylvania State University as an architectural engineering major, got bored, joined a fraternity, and switched to pre-med (BS 1996).  After working in various medical jobs, he rejected that field too, but was again struck by the ensuing onus of career when faced with acceptance to the nation’s best dental school. What an awful idea. Emboldened by a magazine ad, Andrew pursued furniture design, a decidedly better application of his interests and heritage (lapsed PA Dutch), and eventually arrived at the Rhode Island School of Design (MFA 2003), where he didn’t make much furniture.

Since then, based in Red Hook, Brooklyn, Andrew’s disparate, often derivative work primarily explores the paradoxical nature of meaning. He currently divides his time between the graphic and the fine arts, creating witty, stand-alone multiples (snow globes that put an ironic twist on Milton Glaser’s I [HEART] NY logo; “tree-log” coasters made of cork), as well as thoughtful-yet-whimsical drawings, altered photographs, and found-object-inspired installations.

Andrew Coates