Litten attended Amersham College of Art (now Amersham & Wycombe College) in his teens but found it claustrophobic and restricting so did not continue with higher art education.[15] He is a self-taught painter and sculptor.[16]
He moved to Cornwall in 2001 and chose to begin exhibiting.[17] Early success came in 2003 when his work was included in an exhibition titled 'Nudes' in New York City, (along with Jacob Epstein and Pierre-Auguste Renoir) with a review in the New York Times.[18][19][20] In 2007 Litten had his first major London exhibition with "Dog Breeder" created as an anti-art statement on the absurdity of the contemporary art world and its hierarchies.[15][21]
Recent work (since 2014) deals with humanistic themes such as social alienation, love, sensuality, fear, anger, loss, ageing, addiction, paranoia and other identity disturbance.[22][23] His dynamic and gestural figurative paintings express a strong interest in the universal complexity of everyday existence.[24]
Sudden Involuntary Chemical Withdrawal oiloncanvas 120 x 120cm 2016
Early life
Andrew Litten "Domestic Fight" 1994
At the age of sixteen Litten began taking evening classes in life drawing, with an early interest in expressionist art.[25][26] He then attended art college as a teenager but found it "restricting and claustrophobic" so left college with the intention of finding inspiration within commonplace life.[27] From 1990 to 1999, he created figurative representations of the ordinary and the everyday that often conveyed emotive poignancy.[28] Litten's paintings and assemblages at this time often referenced song titles, including 'Stepping Out' by The Fall, 'You Always Hurt The One You Love' by The Mills Brothers and 'Kitchen Person' by The Associates.[29]
His use of wit is a striking factor in his work at this time and is manifest in his choice of materials and their appropriateness to his subjects.[28] Joseph Clarke wrote "in Litten's past work, the addition of hair, stuffed creatures, staples, screws, the scraps of paper or board that the work was made on, often created formal as well as emotional shift; important vehicles for helping the strange message within to reveal itself and go to work on the viewer".[30] Often using humble domestic or found materials (including envelopes and assembled furniture parts) the work made at this time deliberately challenged ideas of art elitism and art as commodity.[31]
Retrospective exhibitions of Litten's early work have taken place at Royal Cornwall Museum and the Australia National University.[32][33]
Litten lived in London in the 1990s and later moved to Oxford where he worked as a photographic assistant and visits to the studio of Richard Hamilton encouraged a renewed interest in painting.[34]
2000 to 2014
Dog Breeder 2007
Litten moved to Cornwall in 2001 and began exhibiting with Dick The Dog and then Goldfish, along with other independent art spaces in Bristol.[35] His work at this time is considered to be highly emotional, subversive and haunting with subject matter that hints at both our animal impulses and spiritual yearnings.[30][36] His figurative representations often appear ambiguously expressive and indefinite in sex.[37] During these years, Litten's subject matter deals with issues of voyeurism, dysfunctional sexual attachments and behaviors.[38] Litten's visual narratives at this time are questioning and considered to defy rather than define, with a likeness to the unpunctuated texts of Jack Kerouac.[39]
Dog Breeder
Dog Breeder (which incorporates paint with human hair) uses a subverted sexual subtext to convey a twisted anti-art statement that comments on the absurdity of the contemporary art world and its hierarchies.[40][41] The subject refers to the control of the art dealer over artists, and this is represented by the depiction of four sexualised dog-like figures that are on heat and clustering around one large dominant dog human.[42][43] Dog Breeder was first exhibited in London, Vyner Street during Frieze art week 2007 and then in Cornwall the following year where it was described as sick and depraved.[42][44]
Recent Work
Litten's dynamic and gestural figurative paintings express interest in a wide range of humanistic themes such as love, sensuality, fear, anger, loss, addiction and personal growth.[45][46] His large scale gestural and impasto paintings are raw and emotive with introspective tensions that expose the visceral identity of the human subconscious.[47][48] In 2018 Litten's solo exhibition was developed with support by Arts Council England.[47] Litten's "Concerning the Fragile" works (2019 - 2020) deal with human fragility, beareavment and addiction intensified by the death of his wife, Emma, in 2019.[49]
Litten has lived in Fowey, Cornwall UK since 2001, he was married to Emma Neame from the four generations of the Neame family in the film business, Emma died in 2019.[49][98][99] He is a nominated member of the Newlyn Society of Artists and Contemporary British Painting group.[100]
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1 2 Andera, Margaret; Stone, Lisa, eds. (2012). Accidental genius: art from the Anthony Petullo collection (1sted.). Milwaukee, WI: Milwaukee Art Museum. ISBN978-3-7913-5200-8. OCLC756180953.
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