Eric Andre ( He, Him, His )

Eric Andre is an interdisciplinary artist whose research encapsulates abstract and perceptual-driven artworks to explore immigrants' experiences of displacement, vulnerability, and negotiation to challenge the sociocultural, sociopolitical, and socioeconomic systems.

He uses different mediums and a participatory approach to situate the audience in spaces of accessibility and inaccessibility, inhibited by fear and a lack of understanding of the unknown. As a multimedia artist, he is interested in engaging the audience through interactive space using video, sound, projection, drawing, and sculpture pieces to create an atmosphere that allows for an open dialogue between the works and audiences.

Eric is interested in creating an environment where people can see themselves through his eyes. He seeks to explore systems, institutions, and structures that control how people live, work, and relate to one another within and beyond boundaries and how those social, political, and cultural constructs shape the world.

He is influenced by the complexity of immigrants' experience and how people's negotiation space attracts various interpretations of institutions, structures, and systems of control. The severity of the situation is the inconsiderate migrants' policies and border brutality resulting from nationalism (defining boundaries, "We" and the "Others") fueled by the fear of the Others as a threat.

His works aim to create a new sense of consciousness and self-awareness to trigger people to question their identity and prerogatives within the constructed systems through in-between space. We all need to make the world better by recognizing that we are all human before anything.

Eric Andre (b. 1985, Akumadan, Ashanti Region, Ghana) holds an MFA from theUniversity of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, and a BFA from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology University, Kumasi, GH. He became a Teaching and Research Assistant and a Principal Lab/Studio Technician in the Ceramics Department at KNUST. Eric also worked as an Adjunct Professor at the University of Arkansas and the Curator at Art Ventures Gallery. Currently, he is the Visiting Assistant Professor of Studio Art at Stetson University, DeLand, FL.His practice explores immigrants’ experiences of displacement, vulnerability, and negotiation of place to challenge the ubiquitous and complex sociocultural, sociopolitical, and socioeconomic control systems. As an interdisciplinary Artist educated in Ghana and the US, he has had the opportunity to work in different artistic environments and a cross-cultural and multimedia experience. He has held numerous solo exhibitions, and his works have been included in group exhibitions in Ghana and many venues across the United States.His current exhibitions include “The Systemic Punches: Displacement Experience of the Vulnerable Immigrant” at Arts On Main, formerly the Center for Art and Education, in Van Buren, (2023) and FNAR Gallery, School of Art, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR, (2021)Stetson Faculty Biennial Exhibition, Hand Art Center, University, Deland-Florida, (2023)The Fear of the Fearless, Main Gallery (Wall Space) by CACHE, Springdale AR, (2023)The Medium is The Message – The African Diaspora Story. Taylor Hall Gallery, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, (2021)