Andrew Mogridge was born in 1969 in the Eastern Cape, South Africa.

He attended Selborne College and went on to study an undergraduate diploma in Graphic Design at the Port Elizabeth Technikon. Thereafter, he then went on to complete an honours degree in Painting at The Walter Sisulu University, where he later lectured. After holding the position as the Creative Director at an advertising agency, Mogridge opened his own design studio.

Now, Mogridge is a full-time fine artist, specialising in ceramics and painting, and his work is exhibited in some of the most respected art galleries in the country.

 

ARTIST STATEMENT

I embrace the absurd and value the power of impulse over preconception. With the help of acerbic humour, I explore themes of power, violence, and the farce of authority. My process is characterised by an approach that invites the unexpected and takes full advantage of unhappy accidents. Using titles and phrases I attempt to satisfy our innate craving for meaning. Words, no matter how banal or disfigured, are comforting and familiar.

As a multimedia artist, I play to the strengths of each medium. The immediacy of drawing, the directness of painting, the iteration and editioning of printmaking and the temporality of film and music. Canvas rots, paper fades, and music falls out of fashion. As a medium, ceramics has one notable property, that of durability. Each piece has the potential to last a few thousand years by which time the ideas of ownership or provenance are lost and meaning itself loses traction to history.

Because of the pots three dimensionality the full story doesn’t unfold without a full rotation and at all times there is quite literally another side to the story. As the pot is rotated there is a temporality that is shared with other media such as film or music.

The graphic nature and the highly activated surfaces of my work are, more than likely, the result of having worked in advertising for 20 years. Advertisers demand high impact. The ads themselves are visual hammers and blunt instruments in the service of consumption.

“How can I help?”.