Brenda Alexandra Andrews
Independent Artist, Director & Curator
Retrospective Portfolio
Portfolio
International Consortium of Women Artists
A global series of exhibitions hosted by each artist in their respective homelands. Each artist creates and presents evocative works in response to the experience of cultural passage from the outside - in. OVER HERE (THERE) exhibitions are installed in Museums and Institutions around the world. Underwritten through art and education grants by Hong Kong Arts Development Council, Beijing Art Council, Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, Republique Francaise, American Turkish Society, Center of Contemporary Art – Tbilisi, Creative Australia (formerly the Australia Council). Here begins a visual wanderlust that only upon arrival to There can we hope to know the integration, growth and bonding we anticipate - uniting us as global citizens though our sharing of vision and perseverance.
Turban Undone
Private Collection
Turban Undone serves as a poignant exploration of visibility, vulnerability, and the complex nature of identity.
Set against a stark triptych of woven black hair, a red turban unravels like an open wound, trailing downward with haunting grace. From a narrow slit, Jan van Eyck's eyes emerge—quiet, vigilant, and deeply exposed.
Premiering in both the U.S. and Istanbul, this work resonated powerfully with audiences, many of whom were moved to tears by its compelling restraint. Critics praised it as "an open wound rendered silent" and "a portrait of quiet resistance."
On the global stage, it received significant acclaim for its poetic minimalism and emotional depth, offering a powerful commentary on Orientalism and the commodification of the Eastern body within the Western gaze.
Indigo Tears: Singing the Blues
Cloth and the Human Experience, Janet Hoskins
Indonesia
The tradition of indigo dyeing is a matrilineal craft, passed down through generations of women and guarded by a system of taboos that exclude male participation. Access is also restricted for women at specific stages of their reproductive cycles.
Practiced by elder women, this esoteric art is deeply intertwined with herbalism, midwifery, and the ritual tattooing of the female body throughout her life journey. Immersed in womb-like indigo baths, threads absorb sacred energies—imbued with blessings, bound obligations, and the encasement of fertility in protective bundles. Through tied clusters, the threads resist the dye,
creating white outlines and motifs reminiscent of photographic negatives, which reveal themselves against a deep blue ground.
When the warp and weft are finally woven together, a mystical language of symbols—passed from woman to woman, to girl—emerges in the uncut cloth, inscribed with intimate ancestral narratives. Cloth becomes a vessel of life’s transitions: it cradles a newborn, wraps a bride, and ultimately shrouds a body in death—each stage leaving its imprint, forever woven into the fabric's memory.
In the installation Indigo Tears (2000)—comprising dye baths, indigo pigment, one-ton salt crystals, cloth, water, and an amplifier—the act of dyeing unfolds within a context of geographical and emotional displacement. Yet, it remains tethered to a universal cult of female secrecy: silent gestures exchanged between mothers and daughters, among friends, and within intimate female circles. Created during a poignant moment as my daughter prepared to leave home, Indigo Tears became an embodiment of separation, longing, and the bittersweet passage into womanhood.
The cloth transforms into a temporal heirloom—marking the shared passage of time. Drops of water, falling onto a bed of salt crystals, dissolve indigo balls carefully placed along the fabric—eighteen in total, one for each year of our life together. As the droplets mingle and overlap, they create teardrop patterns that gradually fill the white spaces, forming a dialogue in indigo. Amplified within a steel bowl of water, these droplets sing—counting down the minutes until my daughter steps into her own journey, inheriting the legacy of the Blue Arts.
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Innocent Eye Test
Cow Feeding Hut
PRC, Hong Kong
Innocent Eye Test is a 10' x 16' diaphanous painting-installation that transforms the traditional picture plane into a permeable membrane. Viewers are invited to step through this architecturally constructed threshold, entering a temporal and psychological space for projection and reflection. Enveloped in a milky mist, they experience a momentary suspension—a visceral vertigo—as they cross into an ambiguous in-between zone. On the far side, a projection of the “innocent eye” appears, superimposed onto a reflective surface, dissolving boundaries between interior and exterior, sensation and articulation.
This ephemeral installation employs a misting system
that produces a fog wall of water and milk, designed toflash evaporate” before touching the ground. The space is dimly lit, with a piercing cobalt light projection illuminating a mirrored surface on the back wall. A reproduction of Mark Tansey’s Innocent Eye Test is glimpsed through this shifting membrane of fog, evoking layers of mediated seeing.
Innocent Eye Test probes themes of ephemeral memory, free-floating narratives, and the enduring legacy of pastoral painting and art criticism. The installation’s transient materials—misting milk, laser projection, and reflective surfaces—embody the fragility of perception and the fluid nature of visual interpretation. Materials: Misting milk, laser projection, reflective surface, reproduction of Mark Tansey’s Innocent Eye Test, architectural framework.
Jansons Prayer Wheel
Private Collection
US, Beijing, University Permanent Collection
Mixed Media Kinetic Sculpture, 5' x 10'
Jansons' Prayer Wheel is a kinetic sculpture that reimagines the canon of art history as a participatory object of reflection. Composed of deconstructed university art history texts—most notably Janson's History of Art—the work transforms these once-static volumes into a series of cylindrical 'prayer wheels.' The concept of 'prayer wheels' is borrowed from Tibetan Buddhist tradition, where these cylindrical objects are used for meditation and prayer. Viewers are invited to turn these wheels physically, activating the names and
images of 'great artists' as they roll across time, geography, and artistic medium.
As each wheel turns, the hierarchical structure of art history unravels, revealing its constructed nature. The sculpture questions who gets enshrined within the canon and how narratives of artistic "greatness" are perpetuated through institutional education. By inviting touch and rotation, Jansons' Prayer Wheel offers a meditative yet subversive act: spinning the weight of tradition into a fluid, ever-changing flow.
This work operates at the intersection of reverence and critique. It reveres the rich history of art but also critiques the rigidity of its lineage. By transforming art history's rigid lineage into a tactile experience of revision and possibility, the sculpture encourages viewers to reconsider the narratives of artistic 'greatness' that have been perpetuated through institutional education.
Materials: Deconstructed art history books, printed paper, aluminum rollers, bearing system, steel frame and mechanism.
Olympia: Cloth and Human Experience
US, France
(Silk, silkworms, mulberry leaves, ground lapis lazuli; installed dimensions: L 50' x W 30' x H 20')
Cloth is a universal art form—an intersection of comprehension and sensation—that holds limitless potential for communication through its structure, color, and pattern. Whether worn or displayed, cloth signifies age, gender, status, rank, and group affiliation, while simultaneously functioning as a global commodity. For centuries, it has symbolized political and economic liberation, acting as a silent yet potent marker of identity and autonomy.
However, cloth also conceals. It can homogenize individuality through uniforms or fabricate false personas through costumes. It embodies the ideological values of both maker and wearer, asserting complex moral and ethical dialogues around power and freedom, opulence and poverty. Passed through generations, cloth speaks in a visual language that transcends spoken word, bridging cultural divides with its symbolic lexicon.
The title Olympia references Édouard Manet's iconic 1863 painting of the courtesan Victorine Meurent, whose defiant gaze and erotic pose challenged the artistic and social conventions of 19th-century Paris. Draped in luxurious Oriental silks, Manet's Olympia confronts the viewer with her unapologetic modernity—free from illusion, she reclaims her agency.
In Brenda Andrews' radical reinterpretation, Victorine's figure is erased as a postmodern gesture, replaced by a living tableau of silkworms. This act of erasure becomes a cannibalistic remembrance, consuming both the model and the critical discourse surrounding her. Andrews' Olympia reorients the historical dialogue towards contemporary concerns of environmental fragility, capitalist excess, and the commodification of eroticism.
Here, Olympia is transformed into a shifting repository of semiotic exchange. Her gown—stretched across fifty feet of silk—becomes a canvas for themes of interdependence, sexuality, and commerce. Economic data visualizations, in the form of graphs, are exhibited in an adjoining gallery, linking textile production to global market fluctuations. Over eight hundred silkworm eggs are incubated on the surface of lapis lazuli, fed with mulberry leaves, and nurtured through their life cycles. As they traverse Olympia's silken landscape, these fragile creatures leave behind ephemeral, ghostly patterns—living marks that echo both economic volatility and intimate human acts.
The installation space is vast and hushed. Over six to nine weeks, the silkworms animate the fabric with subtle, rhythmic movements, a choreography of survival and labor. With a natural attrition rate of 25%, the installation also foregrounds fragility and loss. Upon spinning their cocoons, the silkworms metamorphose, eventually emerging to dance, mate, and lay a new generation of pearl-like eggs—each a delicate signature of life's transience.
In this microcosm of voyeurism, Andrews invites contemplation on the fragility of life, the speculative nature of commerce, and the primal forces of desire. Olympia remains in perpetual flux—both a vulnerable commodity and a salacious object of exchange—inscribed into the evolving narrative of the female nude, contemporary culture, and the enduring politics of cloth as a reflection of the human condition.
Glass Ceiling
US, Turkey Topkapi Harem
Glass Ceiling critiques the systemic erasure of women artists in canonical art history publications. The installation suspends black and white transparency images of female artists excerpted from Janson's History of Art, a textbook that has historically marginalized their contributions. These monochrome reproductions reference how women’s artworks were often relegated to black and white plates, even as male artists appeared in full color.
Delicately hung with monofilament and strands of human hair, the fragmented images float above a reflective glass surface. As viewers move through the space, these ghostly reflections warp and shift, distorting the images into ephemeral shadows. The mirrored floor generates a double image—a visual metaphor for the duplicity of inclusion and exclusion in art historical narratives.
The installation evokes the fragile visibility of women in art history: a presence that is simultaneously asserted and erased, visible yet obscured. The 'glass ceiling' here becomes both literal and conceptual—an invisible barrier suspended above, reflecting a fractured, gendered history back onto itself. The interplay of transparency, reflection, and human materials invites viewers to confront how representation is mediated and manipulated. Black and white reprinted transparency images, monofilament, glass, human hair, and lightingVariable dimensions
Reviews
Over Here (There)
Annetta Kapon, International Art Critic
Brenda Regier’s [Andrews] artistic journey demonstrates a deep commitment to exploring the intricate connections between personal experiences and broader cultural narratives. Her work serves as a powerful inquiry into the essence of humanity in a changing world, drawing on her diverse background to resonate with universal truths.
In her exhibitions, Andrews skillfully curates the spatial arrangement of artworks, often creating immersive installations that captivate viewers. These environments invite intimate engagement and foster connections that go beyond simple observation, encouraging movement and emotional responses.
Her scholarship, rooted in extensive research in art history and cultural studies, adds depth to her work. References to historical art movements act as a platform for critique and innovation, situating her creations within a continuum that bridges past and present.
As a pivotal figure in contemporary art, Andrews' work explores the complexities of human experience. The integration of technique, concept, and emotional resonance fosters meaningful discourse, empowering viewers to reflect on their roles within cultural narratives. Her legacy is one of inspiration, challenging conventions, and engaging audiences through her striking and thought-provoking creations.
Annetta Kapon
Room to Scale
Jansons' Prayer Wheel
Scott Peters
I can see how you had to have been challenged by this modern environment and
where this piece was to ultimately live. You have pulled off a masterpiece that
will most definitely stand the test of time, as all must. I see a triumph of
design and high concept. A mind engaging work of thought. The piece stands
powerfully, yet does not infringe upon the space.
The artist's range emanates and develops interest on many levels - As a literary totem, as a tactile expression of human perspective, a diffuser of light and as an element of
environmental expansion. This intellectual architecture engages the mind to
climb and provokes individual stasis, moving the mind and widening the intellect
as much as one will allow. I understand why your patron was overwhelmed to the
point of tears. To collaborate on such a great work and to see the culmination
of such precise efforts of an artist is undoubtedly awe inspiring. I am so
proud of you and impressed with how far you have taken your work. Conceptual
design and its finest execution.
Brenda Andrews
Jansons Prayer Wheel