Andrew Herzog is a Brooklyn-based interdisciplinary artist and designer creating works that manifest as paintings, installations, interventions, films, photographs, drawings, printed media, interactive media, and ephemeral and participatory happenings that are often collaborative and/or interactive in nature. His latest body of work “Day(‘)s End” is a series of new paintings that focus on personal and collective storytelling through images of subjects that function as nexuses - sites of convergence whose presence sparks or contributes to change on a geological scale. 

“Day(‘)s End” meditates on the residues left by human activity—material, cultural, and temporal—and the ways in which they inform the landscapes of the present and future. These layered compositions of permanence and impermanence invite viewers to consider the cycles of creation and destruction that shape our world amid the Anthropocene epoch. 

These works are rendered on surfaces layered with rock pigment created by Andrew from stones collected near his studio in New York City. The pigments lend the paintings both a literal and symbolic connection to deep time. Andrew extends this dialogue to the ever-changing anthropocentric city landscape, incorporating motifs taken from graffiti removal processes. These traces, like the quiet competition of native plant species vying for survival, embody the tension between erasure and propagation.

"Day(')s End (Funeral Pyre), " rock pigment, oil paint, spray paint, pastel & gouache on paper, 30 by 36 inches

"Perhaps, The Wheel Is To Blame For Some Of This? II," rock pigment, spay paint, oil paint & charcoal on paper, 30 by 30 inches

"Cutting Power," rock pigment, oil paint, spray paint, pastel & gouache on paper, 18 by 18 inches

"At the Threshold To The Belly Of The Beast (Jaws)," rock pigment, spray paint, oil paint, pastel & charcoal on paper, 38 by 36 inches

"The Last," rock pigment, spray paint, oil paint, charcoal & gouache on paper, 48 by 38 inches

a selection of sketches, pastel, charcoal & gauche on grid paper & tracing paper, 9 by 12 inches

Additional Thoughts by Andrew Herzog...

We are conscious beings, and for centuries, religion placed us at the center of the universe, reinforcing an anthropocentric ideology. It is only in the last 200 years or so that we have begun to truly grasp the reality that we are not at the center of the universe—nor even at its highest tier. If we look closely, we can see that all things exist in concert with one another.

In many ways, this body of work is about scale. Some objects depicted here are physically small but have an outsized impact. Others are large in scale yet have minimal influence on our lives. There are also objects that hold personal monumentality—deeply significant to me but insignificant to most. Although, as James Joyce famously said, “In the particular is contained the universal.” I think he was right, especially when I see how people viscerally react to the image of a Corvette on fire—and supplant all sorts of meaning and personal histories in that image.

The presence of the rock in my work speaks to how we navigate scale through the lens of time. It represents an attempt to visualize things that exist beyond our human timescale—things that endure beyond our life span. The objects we interact with every day provide a sense of longevity, a fleeting connection to something more enduring than ourselves.

I am also interested in how we grapple with time itself—how we process, visualize, and internalize our existence within it. At its core, my work is about creating interfaces. A painting is an interface—a space where we engage with truth or fiction, where we attempt to reconcile what the artist is trying to communicate. In this way, paintings are not unlike the interfaces we use daily—our phones, computers, and websites. All of these engagements necessitate discernment.  All of my work is an interface, everything exists in a liminal space, a threshold.

AVAILABLE WORKS