ANDREW LEVITAS (BORN 1977)

Andrew Levitas was born on September 4, 1977 in Manhattan, New York. A mainstay at city theatres, museums, and galleries at a very young age, Andrew found himself surrounded by many of the brightest and most unique artists of a generation. With the mentorship of poet Allen Ginsberg and other local artists, by the age of 15, Levitas was writing, painting, shooting photographs, and a member of an experimental theatre company.

Levitas followed this unique education with a more traditional one at New York University. After earning his degree, Andrew relocated to the west coast to continue what became a successful acting career both in television and film.

With a flourishing career, and the freedom that it afforded him, it didn’t take long before Levitas burst onto the art scene. Levitas’ “Metal Work Experiment” transformed the way that photography is presented indoors and out. Developed by the artist,  METALWORK photography is a process involving the transfer of photographs into transparencies that are in turn melted onto hand detailed metal sheets. The result is a work that combines the imagery of a photograph with the presence of a sculpture. While these works are printed as editions, they function, in fact, as unique objects since each print differs, depending on the level of hand tooling on the metal.

Levitas’ work continued to evolve and change. In early 2007, he released an ambitious and critically acclaimed show pairing paint, canvas and organic materials. The collection, reflective of Los Angeles life, was in part a commentary on emotion, the way we choose to express ourselves, and the ways in which we insulate ourselves from essential truths.

2008 was prolific year for Levitas. A Beverly Hills exhibition of new work, in which he used almost exclusively organic materials in his large scale abstracts, was embraced as a discourse on nature, the organic and its place in the contemporary world. Also, in December of 2008, Levitas was honored as one of only a handful of American painters ever accepted to the prestigious Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in its one hundred and fifty year existence.

In the spring of this 2009, Levitas presented new works on canvass and steel at the Dactyl Foundation in Soho, New York, receiving rave reviews. In the fall of 2009 a combination of works were shown at Art Basel. Levitas’s current work is a departure from his traditionally more aggressive fare, and portrays the vivid and beautiful landscapes of Long Island, a place that holds special significance for him.  The images, which are familiar to anyone who has spent time in the Hamptons, are deliberately sentimental.  As art can often do, these photographs are reminders, recalling fond memories of long beautiful summer days spent near the ocean.