Andy Clover

For background on the artist and works, see below.

Current Works

About the Artist

Andy Clover has been developing his own distinctive approach to light artworks since he started studying for his Bachelor of Visual Arts, which he graduated with Distinction from NMIT in 2002. Scrounging materials from skips and empty buildings, he came across a big old lightbox ‘and started playing around with it’. Then he began to gather light fittings and shop fittings at any opportunity, and turned them into artworks. One is now in the NMIT Collection.

Born and raised in Wellington, Andy Clover has exhibited in Nelson, Wellington, Auckland and Marlborough, and in a 2009 exhibition in New York. He has also been closely involved with the development of The Refinery Artspace in Nelson for emerging artists, curating two substantial exhibitions there. He won the BNZ Art Excellence Award for outstanding graduate at NMIT in 2002, and the Gordon Harris Award in 2010 for best visual work in Metonymy at the Corban Estate Art Centre in Auckland.

Recent Works

His latest works are mainly new lightboxes, created from Perspex and vinyl. The deceptive simplicity and aesthetic beauty of the boxes belie the complex and provocative issues raised by the works. He doesn’t always like them too perfect, however, and will sometimes work on the piece ‘to make it a bit grungier’.
A designer and creative director by profession, in his art he tries to let go of the idea of perfection. ‘Sometimes the stuff-ups create something new or unexpected’. But the purity of light remains deeply appealing.
‘It has this transformative quality in terms of space, not just in architectural terms, but the difference between a piece lit and non-lit will be dramatic.’