André de Vanny

Personal memory, historical knowledge, and ways of remembering take form through André de Vanny’s practice, negotiating between the weight of the past and the instability of the present. Both linear and cyclical, de Vanny's work unfolds as a repository of memory, storytelling, and iconography through which he explores how we recall and make sense of our experiences.

Memories of growing up in rural Australia inform a palette dominated by ochres, umbers, and iron-rich reds. “As a child, I spent long hours roaming the bush through dry gullies, abandoned quarries, and old military bunkers, imagining heroic figures moving through those spaces. Those early acts of imaginative play continue to linger in the work,” says de Vanny. His layered foundations result from months of washing, staining, and reworking—an accumulation of time and labour that grounds his more painterly, figurative compositions. Variations in speed, rhythm, and intensity of line hold the figure, while tone, colour, depth, and contrast build an affective register within the work.