Andrew Backhouse
Andrew Backhouse is a collage artist based in Harrogate, North Yorkshire who explores themes of memory and absence. His work reflects the idea that the past is never fully gone and that even events which never happened still shape our present. Rather than telling straightforward stories, Andrew uses fragments of sound, images, and text that don’t fit neatly into one narrative.
Andrew doesn’t simply use found and recorded materials to document reality. Instead, he sees them as elements to reshape, layer, and present in new ways. His work avoids clear, literal interpretations, instead creating a sense of faded memories. Images appear blurred by sunlight, and themes feel more like distant recollections than precise depictions.
By digitally manipulating historical and contemporary imagery into layered and fragmented compositions, Andrew challenges traditional ideas of history. He combines archival materials from different eras with a new, edited layer that emphasises how futures that never happened still impact the present. His work encourages viewers to reconsider memory and history as overlapping, unreliable, and influenced by unrealised possibilities.
Andrew’s art suggests that time is not linear but circular, with echoes and unexpected disruptions. Inspired by thinkers like Derrida and Jameson, his work reflects their ideas through its fragmented and layered approach.
Creating art, for Andrew, involves exploring, editing, and embracing uncertainty. He allows past events to interrupt the present, encouraging viewers to notice what remains hidden or overlooked, just beyond clear sight.
"I’m an artist based in Harrogate, North Yorkshire exploring the relationship between time, memory and place."
Connection to Yorkshire
I'm lucky enough to live in Harrogate, North Yorkshire.
Categories
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collage
fine-art-photography
landscape-photography
digital-art
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