The top edges are rounded. Various segments don’t quite match up. Masking tape supports the image. Three young boys stand in height order. One of their heads is slightly cropped. The clothes are dated and a ‘D’ shaped pocket stands out. They smile and face the viewer. To the left, in the mid-ground, several anonymous and blurry figures take no notice of the scene. One man bends over. Part of a stripy and colourful parasol can be seen. The green grass recedes to a horizon of trees. The colours are warm and the scene is idyllic. This is an image of the past.
Andy deconstructs memory by reconstructing the past. A camera captured an ephemeral moment in time and over the years both memory and photograph have faded. Memories functions like a match falling down a well - the further it drops, the less illuminated things become. Andy attempts to reverse this process and resurrect the ghosts of the past. ‘3 Brothers’ is essentially a time machine.
The work addresses our perception of ‘reality’: By piecing together literal fragments, we engage with the disjointed and artificial nature of memory. The resulting window into the past is a life sized, three-dimensional and fully Technicolor experience. As we move, so too the image moves - morphing, changing and making visceral a half forgotten occasion. The viewer is therefore presented with a new reality - no more or less faithful to the ‘actual’ event than the original photograph (or indeed the memories of those involved). Andy toys with time and space here and the resulting illusion is both self-aware and playful – existential yet relatable.
Although ostensibly connected to the memories of specific people, we are all invited to participate in the experiment. As the image is a generically familiar one, we bring our own memories, experiences, insights and prejudices to the picture. Andy makes looking an active rather than reactive process. We perceive the image through many layers and filters - not least through our own rose-tinted spectacles (well, half rose and half blue). Ultimately, the image only exists in the minds of the viewer and by engaging with the artwork we each create new and equally ‘real’ memories, which of course will also change and fade over time.
The original image now exists in many forms. Having experienced one such reproduction, I decided to write my description of the scene from memory (participating in the spirit of the work as I perceived it). Thus, the image has been reproduced again - this time in words. Another filter has been added and once again the scene has been rendered both two-dimensional and colourless.
Peter Crack, Ph.D.
“I was listening to Boards of Canada 'Music has the right to children' and it reminded me of your work - it has that futuristic/nostalgic feel. I was thinking that I would quite like to make a song based on your piece and memory in general.”
Somewhere Between the Boundaries of infra-red and ultra-violet stand 3 Brothers like 3 Rays in a Rainbow; auras Red and Blue. Look at them with 3 D glasses and you enter into their colour spectrum, like a ray of light enters the aperture of a Camera at the Click of a button - it is only an instant. Look around. In a few moments you will notice the D on AnDy’s pocket. Only a moment ago there were 2 Ds. Now the D stands alone in 3 dimensions. Another moment and you will notice that the Red umbrella has changed to Blue – you flipped the rainbow-round when you stepped into their multi-coloured world. Somewhere in the middle-ground (the band of Green, covered in grass), strangers shimmer, but don’t look at them too long. The 3 boys are looking at you. They are related: if you want to relate to them too, crouch down. They are still young. What year is this? What place? What longitude, what latitude, pin down the paper edges that divide up and across the fragments of this memory? You can’t map memory any more than you can record the length of time of rainbows. You can’t even predict when they’ll appear (but when they do they’re beautiful). In case you had forgotten, rainbows are in fact diffracted rays of light: falling raindrops shatter them into all their different-coloured fragments. Memories are rainbows too: strands of colour merge and mingle through falling time until all you have left is a moment; a photograph; a mother’s word (Smile?); a pocket; a Red umbrella; now a Blue umbrella. Please don’t touch the art-work. It won’t help you remember, and anyway, you can’t touch memories. If you try too hard to reach rainbows, they will shatter like a ray of light inside a water droplet. Don’t forget to look back at them though - time is passing by... it might start raining soon. The 3 Brothers are smiling brightly at you across the rainbow of time. You share their colours. It is only an instant. Fading sunbeam. They recognise you... don’t you remember them?
Lucy Fernandes