Philadelphia Outsider and Symbolic Art by Andrea Beizer

ARTIST STATEMENT

Andrea Beizer

For more than 30 years, I have brought stories and memories new life through art. A native of Philadelphia, I grew up in a family of storytellers, or tellers of memories, and my mother’s family was very artistic and encouraged me to become an artist.  Since childhood I have been exposed to the artwork of my mother, aunts and an uncle, Albert Hoffman, who later on became a recognized “outsider artist.” 

I work with a wide variety of mediums, including oils, acrylic, graphite and oil pastels in my art, and help promote the craft through the community as an art college professor. I also participate in many local and regional exhibitions, bringing my art’s unique perspective on stories, traditions and the spiritual tradition of my ancestors. 

As an artist, I believe that it is important to respond to the world we live in, either through perceived reality or through spirituality. Symbols may be used to represent something other than themselves and as a way of bridging these realms together.

I also created the cartoon strip Alice©, a character with a sharp wit trying to make it in a complex modern society as she questions everything around her, including herself. The strip ran in the “Philadelphia Architect” for several years in the mid-1980s, and was given new life in 2013 under the auspices of Tony Auth. Tony was a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist for the Philadelphia Inquirer and artist in residence at WHYY until his passing in September 2014. More of Alice’s story can be found on my blog at www.alicecartoons.com.