Andrew Bates

Art speaks when I can't find the strength to. Turning emotion, grief, and healing into something visible and tangible in a vulnerable way.

Currently 5th

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You decide who will appear in Artforum Magazine, take home $25,000, and display their work at The Art of Elysium's Salon!

Voting for the Top 15 ends Thursday the 21st of May at 7PM PDT

What is The People's Artist?

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What is your favorite type of art to create?

Honestly? That varies! When I first started, I loved drawing anime, but it slowly grew from a simple hobby into a full-blown passion. Now I focus on photorealism because I can capture the emotion in someone’s eyes and bring it to life with simple lines and smudges. Lately though, I’ve been drawn to the quiet beauty of empty, minimal spaces like a lone house or a single streetlight illuminating a road that leads nowhere.

Where do you find inspiration?

My main inspiration is those I'm closest to. My wife who is my BIGGEST supporter, my kids and watching them grow, my artist mother, my late artistic grandfather, and in everyday life or even my own emotions. However... My wife? She's my muse. When I am doing a drawing of anatomy? She ends up in my drawings one way or another. Whether a portrait of a random woman I'm working on has her nose, or the female frame I drew to practice the human figure shares her curves? She is ART, and my muse.

What would you do with $25,000?

My wife and I are raising 2 autistic non verbal boys. They've taught me love isn't always expressed verbally, but has many ways of speaking. From their little happy stims all the way to them learning to sign "I love you" in ASL. However, special needs equipment is expensive, and insurance or unfit doctors interfere with their needs. So, I would love to autism proof my home. Make it more accessible for them. Our most vulnerable and purely good deserve protection and safety without a pricetag.

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