Andrew Baron : Statement


	My paintings are not products of a predetermined strategy. It is only through the process of making that the work's thematic content and formal being is extracted and codified. It is the process of making something from nothing. The end result is abstraction with text. The text is used to lend specificity to the work, enabling the other formal elements to have a meaning beyond what the painting or text would have alone. As for the content itself, my paintings are meant to elicit a wide range of responses - polemical, introspective and emotional. They are not meant to be works of affirmation, heroism, community spirit, or any other sentiments designed to be ennobling or good for you. I don't believe that art makes us better people, it merely asserts its right to exist until it can do so no longer.