Artist Spotlight: Andy Kincaid

Andy Kincaid is one of the most ambitious artists currently inhabiting the Wriston studios. As a sophomore, Kincaid has made great strides in his work with photography and sculpture. Here’s a few words from one of Lawrence’s rising stars.Where are you from and what is your major?

I am from a suburb of Minneapolis and am a studio art and possible physics major.

How and when did you start doing art?

We all started doing art before we can remember . but the most important person to me as an artist is Bob Worrell, my elementary school art teacher. Things just sort of went from there. The first time I thought about art seriously was my sophomore year of high school. The summer after freshman year I took a photography class with a friend, and for the following years our evening, weekends, and summers were photography. We would hop in my little Escort and drive all over the Twin Cities, looking around, waiting to be inspired or at least waiting to see something unique or photogenic.
A short time later I acquired an enlarger and some other equipment and built myself a darkroom under my basement stairs. It is there that I really began to find something that made want to commit to art in my life. It was those experiences together with some powerful trips to the Walker Art Center and its collection of postwar abstract paintings that I really became interested in art.

How would you describe the work you do?

I wouldn’t . but here is a little. Much of my work is very conceptual, examining specific characteristics or connotations of an artistic medium or of a specific fundamental characteristic of life.

What artists or performers have been particularly inspirational to you?

This changes as I change. Through, at the beginning of high school it was Salvador Dali. As I became more interested in contemporary art this focus shifted to Matthew Barney and Hiroshi Sugimoto. The single most influential piece was Matthew Barney’s “Cremaster” series, which is a set of five films about the cremaster muscle, responsible for the descent of the testicles. As my art shifts toward a more conceptual focus the artists I find most inspiring also change.

What do you hope to accomplish with your art?

I’m not sure. I want to make people think, and I want to do something new, but I’m not there yet. First I need to figure out who I am in my art. Then I will look to the future.

Can you tell us a little bit about your group upcoming show?

Well, it’s a solo show of my photography and sculpture called “M/F.” I am looking at aspects of sexuality and gender, juxtaposing the brutal and disgusting with the pristine to create some physical truth, but you should go and figure things out yourself.

Do you have any plans for the future?

I am working on a set of work that I’m really excited about. It’s a series of molded spheres, looking at time and creation as process and repetition.