Bryce Andrew

studio art // @3headedthing

February Dream
February Dream is an oil painting I made based heavily on a dream I had a couple of years ago. It was very brief but it felt important for some reason, and so it stayed in my memories. Now that I’ve painted it, I believe it’s a type of self-portrait.

The overcast, washed out, wintery landscape strongly appeals to me, but I’m sure most people find it colorless and depressing. Everybody has their own palette – this one is mine. I see my artistic taste and drive less as a blessing or unique trait and more as a hindrance I was born with. It’s always on my mind and making itself known to me. The five-legged buck in the foreground probably feels similarly about his own situation. Tangled branches remind me of the activity going on inside of my head due to my overactive imagination.

I chose this painting as my senior project because I’m convinced it represents a capstone achievement for my George Mason student experience. I started off as a drawing major but I knew I wanted to add color to my art, so I switched to painting. I made sketches of February Dream, but none of them ever satisfied me – I knew it needed color. For this reason, it made the perfect choice to demonstrate my interest in painting.