Andrew Testa

I am walking, someplace far from home, and I stop. Something lies beneath my feet and I pick it up. A piece of white sea glass stained in a yellow glow sits within my palm. It is ordinary—a casual encounter I am told. I place it in my pocket and continue on. I see another and pick it up: this time blue, and another; green, one more; brown. I notice children wandering the shores with me picking up the same bits and fragments that have caught my eye. 

I am near. Standing upon the ground next to my home becoming acquainted with this and that. Something below calls to me and I pick it up, taken by its charm—a casual encounter, this time I know. I walk back to my front door, placing it inside and continue on. Coltsfoot, hawkweed, dandelions, green foxtails are pulled out by its root or broken off its limb. A collection of dead or dying weeds brought into my living space and laid upon the floor as if preparing their burial.

I look upon my self-portrait, and although it is not immediately evident, I have presented a misguided image. Brows, eyes, nose, ears, lips, and clothes all belong to different individuals.  There is a slight oddity and uncertainty within this image but only to those who know my likeness intimately. My family recognizes the image of the portrait staring back however they do not recognize me in it—they see a second cousin of mine, maybe in his youth. This print has been etched, reworked, placed upon the floor and stepped on, kicked, and reworked again. 

Edited excerpt from, A Constellation of Sorts: Pause, Glean, Repeat, Drift, Wait

A collection of hands: laying limp, hidden in pockets, crossed under arms, working, awkward, unknowing. Isolated and separate, they become the points of attention when seen only as a body’s prop in the original photographs. One figure has two hands but many of these hands feel abandoned, alone; some seem to connect while others do not. I stand in front of a collection of hands, lowered on the paper space—a heaviness of gravity in its display. I am drawn down and I feel each of my own hands and their presence, their uniqueness. I am aware of them while I stare and drift with these images. Two rows of isolated and collected hands; some hidden and some displayed. They are as individual as their owners but appear to be both particular and universal. I can imagine my hands posing/performing in a similar way to each image: a limp hand, a moving hand, a timid hand, a confident hand, an aggressive hand, a secretive hand. The hands presented here perform unknowingly as the sole subject of an image.

Excerpt from, A Constellation of Sorts: Pause, Glean, Repeat, Drift, Wait

I sit in front of Remainders, Reminders and I see a constellation within a grid. Within it are prints, folds, and lines, sitting upon each paper space in various placements. Larger prints within this grid structure gently interrupt the systematic collection but also reinforce the grid from which they came. I sit and stare at fragments of images that are both individual and collective as a whole. One print begins to connect to another either through placement or my own arbitrary recognition. Assumed and visible lines connect one image to the next and there is an attempt to assign order to these once separated and individual elements like the constellations we know so well. I notice a fragment of an image but it is disconnected from its original whole. I attempt to complete the image’s particular form but additionally attempt to create wholeness by connecting that image to others nearby. My eyes jump from one image to the next.

Excerpt from, A Constellation of Sorts: Pause, Glean, Repeat, Drift, Wait