Alice Andrews

In the Boxley Valley near the Buffalo National River, a 19th-century white farmhouse is nestled beside the Ozark Mountains. The home, a testament to a forgotten rural lifestyle, overlooks a long meadow to the east, and a creek runs through the backyard. This is where Arkansas artist Alice Andrews has chosen to make her home. “I have always had a connection to nature and a need to be surrounded by it,” she says. An award-winning painter who is most noted for her depictions of landscapes and rural life, Andrews' choice to live outside of an urban center and maintain a simple life may not be a realistic opportunity for everyone, but her paintings offer an important glimpse into this fast disappearing rural lifestyle, and her talent in capturing the beauty of nature has brought her notice across the United States and Mexico.

She was born and raised in El Dorado and received her undergraduate degree in fine arts from Henderson University in Arkadelphia. It was there, in her sophomore year, that she discovered her love of painting and her desire to become an artist. “My paintings come from the need to make a mark—like drawing in the dirt or scratching on cave walls—a primal drive to create something out of emotions,” she says.

Following graduation, she won a coveted spot at the Hoffberger School of Painting at the Maryland Institute of Art where she earned her masters degree. During this time, she studied under Grace Hartigan, an influential artist who won accclaim in the abstract expressionist movement in the 1940s and 1950s. While Andrews almost always uses recognizable subject matter in her paintings and doesn't consider herself an abstract expressionist, she does count Hartigan as a significant influence on her work. She credits her for helping her recognize that the image is not necessarily the most important part of a painting; color, line and composition are just as crucial. It's in this way that she describes her work as “representational subject matter, pushed towards abstraction.”

Andrews' talent has brought her many places, but in Arkansas, surrounded by nature, she is most at ease. “It's just a part of who I am as a person and it also influences my art.” Her work can be seen in Little Rock at both Closet Factory's downtown showroom at Tobi Fairley Gallery.