Robert Andrew is an artist of mixed heritage, a descendent of the Yawuru people from the Broome area in the Kimberley, Western Australia, as well as of European and Filipino descent. Robert uses practice-led research to investigate denied and forgotten personal and family histories, utilising open-sourced, programmable technologies and machinery to erode, expose substrates, build stories and create residue. These works manifest as visually scraped back and built up palimpsests that reference technology, natural materials and the ‘artefact’.
Fusing the old and the new, Robert uses earth pigments, ochres, rocks and soil to build stories of relationship to land and culture and to mine historical, cultural, political and personal events that have been ignored, buried and distanced by the dominant paradigms of our western culture.
Robert holds a Doctorate in Visual Arts from Griffith University. Robert won the 40th Alice Prize in 2018 for his work White Wash Over The Burn (2017) and has exhibited both nationally and internationally.