Andrew Sim’s debut solo exhibition, “Two Pink Birds with a Gold Nest,” recently captivated audiences at Anton Kern Gallery in New York. This enchanting collection of hairless werewolves, winged horses, and rainbow-colored monkey puzzle trees transported viewers into the whimsical realm of the Scottish artist. Though the exhibition concluded on August 9th, it left a lasting impression with its intricate motifs and personal narratives woven into Sim’s twelve new paintings.
Sim’s artistic journey blends dreamlike visions, classic archetypes, and meaningful observations. These elements coalesce into stunning visual expressions that resonate on both personal and universal levels, offering a world where fantasy and reality intertwine. From meticulous sketches on A4 copy paper to the vivid application of pan pastels, Sim’s creative process is as fascinating as the finished artworks.
In our conversation, Sim reflects on how their artistic evolution is evident in the scale and complexity of their recent works. Initially, Sim’s motifs were life-sized, but now, the choice of scale and cropping accentuates the emotional depth of their subjects. Works like “Two Pink Birds with a Gold Nest” and “Portrait of Two Werewolves Without Hair with Rainbows” beautifully convey the grandeur and intimacy of their themes, exuding a powerful sense of presence and confidence.
As Sim continues to explore their evolving gender presentation and passion for creating queer spaces, their paintings become a vibrant reflection of this journey. The addition of horizon lines, flowers, rainbows, and stars creates enchanting new worlds with a magical interplay of light, enriching the stories embedded in their art.
In this interview, we delve into how “Two Pink Birds with a Gold Nest” marks a significant milestone in Sim’s career and serves as a testament to the transformative power of art, where encoded queerness meets open-ended interpretation. Join us as we explore the captivating world of Andrew Sim and the profound stories behind their remarkable creations.
Interview with Artist Andrew Sim
Your paintings draw from a deep well of dream images and psychological archetypes. How do you think these unconscious elements interact with the conscious themes of vulnerability and affirmation in your work?
I believe these themes start as unconscious feelings. I draw whatever feels right at the moment, and it’s only in retrospect that these images make sense in relation to changes in my life or thoughts I’ve been having. Once I see the connection, I refine the images, rework them, and play with scale. This process of evolution—reworking and refining—represents my journey of bringing unconscious feelings into consciousness. So, in a way, the entire body of my work is about the interaction between conscious and unconscious elements made real.
In Two Pink Birds with a Gold Nest, the motifs range from the surreal to the mythological. What role do these fantastical elements play in your exploration of queer identity and personal growth?
All of the recurring motifs in my work represent some aspect of queerness or personal growth. I’ve always drawn birds, and their skittishness combined with the showiness of their feathers feels like the perfect representation of an aspect of queerness to me. As I mentioned before, this isn’t something I consciously plan, but it makes sense to me afterward. The birds might symbolize the fragility of a glamorous presentation during a night out—spreading their wings yet easily startled. I also think their mobility and migration reflect the changes happening in my life.
Originally, the birds didn’t have nests, but now they do. This could relate to my move to New York and the process of building a home from scratch. My partner pointed out that nests are temporary and made from local materials, which mirrors what I’m doing in NYC. This interpretation challenges the traditional view of the nest as a symbol of the permanent, heteronormative family—the idea of “flying the nest,” “empty nest syndrome,” and “feathering your nest,” for example.
I think my view of the nest as a temporary but meaningful home, rather than a symbol of the straight nuclear family, is something many queer people can relate to. When a motif becomes more central to my work, its scale tends to change, which signals that something is solidifying for me.
Your technique of applying pan pastels with a foam-tipped palette knife creates a unique texture and sense of urgency. How does this method influence the viewer’s perception of your work and its emotional impact?
This is actually quite funny to me. I often have people—whether close friends who’ve watched me work, collectors who’ve bought my pieces, or gallerists who’ve shown my work—ask, “What exactly is this material?” They’re always surprised when I tell them it’s pastel. Even after I explain it, I think they still don’t quite process it. Pan pastels are essentially the pigment found in stick pastels, but without a binding agent, so the pigment is pressed into a flat disk, like a makeup compact. This allows me to apply it incredibly opaquely, blocking out areas in a single layer. I can easily rub out sections and use the pastels more like paint, which also lets me work very quickly.
I don’t plan out the canvas in advance, which is why the cropping can seem a bit unusual. I believe that rawness or intuitiveness is central to the immediacy of my work. The pastels also allow me to shade and blend in a way that contrasts with the intuitive nature of the form. This tension is key to giving the work an archetypal, childlike quality that is really important to me. This wasn’t a conscious process of “developing a style”; it’s just how I’ve always drawn. But when it interacts with unconscious feelings, I think that’s what makes the work successful.
The evolution of your werewolf motif from tentative to confident parallels a significant shift in expression. How do you see this transformation reflecting broader societal changes in the acceptance and celebration of queer identities?
The evolution of the werewolf in my work has always mirrored my own evolving gender expression. Initially, the werewolves had hair, then they became hairless as I underwent facial laser hair removal (a connection that had to be pointed out to me). They started off nervously stepping out into the world, reflecting when I was taking my first steps into a new gender presentation. Now, they’re content and surrounded by stars and rainbows, which definitely mirrors my own contentment with my gender presentation. However, this is an ever-changing process, so who knows what form they’ll take next. Gender can be so contradictory—for example, I’ve been joking that I’m having a “boy summer,” wearing more masculine clothes, but I’m also restarting laser treatment and considering facial feminization. Maybe the werewolves exist in a world where these contradictions are simpler.
While things are becoming more polarized in the media and politics regarding trans rights and liberation, there is definitely a growing understanding that gender isn’t set in stone. It has changed repeatedly throughout history, and it will continue to evolve.
Your work often incorporates large-scale elements, such as Jurassic-sized birds. How do you decide when to amplify the scale of your subjects, and what does this scaling convey about the emotional or psychological weight of the piece?
I can only play with the scale of a work once I truly understand what it means to me. As one motif grows larger, others often become smaller. This doesn’t necessarily mean that one is more or less important than the other, but it might indicate that one has temporarily become more central to my current life situation.
Originally, I wanted to work on a life-sized scale because I wanted to see the horses or trees as they would be in reality. This approach was important to me at that time. However, changes in scale now add another layer of meaning. For instance, if one month I draw a full-sized horse on my studio wall and another month I draw a tiny A4-sized horse, it reflects something that has shifted in me between those months. Understanding what the horse symbolizes to me helps clarify what might have changed.
The addition of horizon lines, flowers, rainbows, and stars brings new complexity to your compositions. How do these elements interact with the narrative and symbolic content of your paintings?
I’ve been considering turning some of the individual forms into three-dimensional sculptures. This idea has allowed me to approach my canvas works in a new way. I’ve always thought of my works as existing in the same world, but by recently changing the scale and adding horizon lines and backgrounds, I’m able to introduce another layer of complexity. This approach lets me combine motifs to create what might be seen as unconscious landscapes. Particularly in my tree works, the addition of stars, flowers, grass, and plants symbolizes a sense of rootedness and unfolding—a fuller landscape.
Your relocation from Glasgow to New York is mirrored by thematic shifts in your work. How do these geographical and cultural transitions influence the motifs and emotional landscapes in your art?
I tend to draw the plants I associate with a place after I leave it. For example, after leaving Glasgow, I drew many of the trees and plants I was familiar with there. Then, after moving to London, I focused on the plants from that city. Perhaps it’s a way of bringing those elements with me. The plants and trees I saw every day come to represent a place, and drawing them after I leave helps me feel connected to those places.
When I moved to NYC, my work became much more frenetic, which may be a cliché, but it’s true. There are more stars, which could be interpreted as flashbulbs or club lights, and more rainbows and color. I love London—it’s a very exciting city, but it feels much older than New York. In London, I focused more on parks and green spaces, yuccas, and trees in front gardens under orange streetlights. In contrast, New York feels more neon, loud, and artificial, and I think that’s reflected in the work I created in each city.
In Portrait of a Rainbow Monkey Puzzle with Flowers and Stars, you create a utopian scene. How do you envision the role of utopia and idealized landscapes in your exploration of queer placemaking?
This is one of my favorite works. It has such an intense energy that it’s almost nightmarish. The original image is of a small monkey puzzle tree surrounded by tulips that my dad sent me. As a motif I’ve returned to several times, it reminds me not just of home, but of connections to friends and family. People often send me pictures of plants they think I’d like, which helps me feel close to them despite not living in the same city or country. I reworked this image from an earlier piece, making the tree rainbow-colored. This reflects part of my move to NYC, where the tree becomes more artificial, showy, and a bit disco-like. There’s definitely a vibe that’s intense, if not aggressive. To me, the closest I’ve felt to a queer utopia is captured by this energy—rooted, colorful, artificial, and simultaneously natural yet unnatural.
People often assume the rainbow colors reference pride, but I have to point out that a rainbow and a pride flag have completely different colors and orders. I use rainbows to signify something that’s both artificial and natural, a bit hyperreal, like plastic Christmas trees that seem more “real” than actual trees. I was once stopped from buying a plastic rainbow Christmas tree for a bar I worked at because everyone hated it. I think about it all the time, so for my last show, I did a drawing of it. Interestingly, the original tree was pride-flag colored, so I had to change it for the drawing.
Your process involves sketching extensively on A4 copy paper before committing to canvas. How does this preliminary work help you distill the “eternal quality” of an image, and what criteria do you use to determine when an image is ready?
I have a rather interesting process with this. I always use A4 copy paper, which is standard UK photocopy paper. The cheaper the paper, the smoother it is, making it better for pastels. I take a stack of it with me and then stick several sheets together to create larger surfaces. I’ve always liked working this way because it feels less precious.
I usually start by deciding it’s time to work on a drawing I’ve been thinking about. After completing it, I often dislike it and find it stressful to look at, so I put it on the floor. After a few weeks, I don’t mind it as much, and I stick it to the bottom of the wall. Over a period of months, it gradually makes its way up the wall until I really love it. By then, it usually has ripped corners and fingerprints all over it. These are the works I become closest to because I truly live with them. I often give these works to friends (usually those not in the arts) on the condition that they don’t frame them but just tape them to their walls. I think of these paper works as the soul of the larger canvases, and it makes me happy to imagine them taped to my friends’ walls in flats back in London or Glasgow. I love returning to a friend’s place after a night out and seeing one stuck to the fridge instead of behind glass.
A funny thing that’s happened with the sizing is that Americans use a different standard paper size, which I dislike working with. The proportions seem wrong to me, so now I have to order UK printer paper, which feels a bit ridiculous. What started as a necessity has become a luxury. It’s another unexpected challenge of moving around or living in two places—something as simple as standardized paper sizes can take on a whole new meaning and really make you spiral.
Your paintings encode themes of queerness in a way that invites personal interpretation. How do you balance the specific and the universal in your work, ensuring that it remains both deeply personal and broadly resonant?
This is something I think about all the time and often discuss in my talks. I believe that as long as I infuse my authentic experiences into the work, it will carry an aura of authenticity and engage viewers. People who share aspects of my identity may read more into the work and perceive its inherent queerness, while others might simply find it engaging and want to learn more.
The titles often provide additional context, but I like that each work has layers that may not be immediately apparent. I don’t fully understand why I’m creating a particular piece until much later, so the archetypal images I aim for leave room for viewers to derive meaning from the work as well as project their own interpretations onto it.
That said, I’m always surprised at how insightful and accurate people’s interpretations can be. A few weeks ago, while I was in a restaurant in Rome (on my honeymoon), a woman at the next table asked what my partner and I did (because we looked like singers, she joked). When we said we were artists, she asked to see some of our work. She was looking at a piece of mine featuring a monkey puzzle tree in Victoria Park. When I told her it was a real tree and showed her a picture of it, she said, “Oh, I knew right away that this was a real tree you were familiar with.”
So, I hope that the images and motifs I use come across as real and deeply meaningful to me, and that they resonate with others who might feel similarly. If I can communicate even a small part of that through my work, I’m satisfied.
About Andrew Sim
Andrew Sim (b. 1987) is a Scottish artist living and working in New York City. Their work has been featured in solo exhibitions at Beyond The Modern Institute at 1-4 Walker’s Court, London (2023); The Modern Institute, Glasgow (2023, 2022); WINDOW by Anton Kern Gallery, New York (2023); and KARMA, New York (2019). Notable group exhibitions include To Be a Giant and Keep Quiet About It at Margot Samel, New York (2022), and Heal the Sick, Raise the Dead as part of the Glasgow International (2021).