Andy Chulyk began his more than thirty-five years as an artist in Northern New England. working out of studios in Boston and Haverhill, MA, and Portsmouth, NH. Since 2006 he has lived and worked in Wisconsin, where in the past years he has been incredibly prolific and has shown in a number of galleries there.

Chulyk's art encompasses an extreme range, from the precious to the bizarre, with both elements frequently emerging in the same piece, but held in tight counterpoint with elegance and discipline. He works in paper to create extremely oiriginal abstracts both hard and lush — the subtle, emerging and fading, glittering or muted, wheels and bars suggest the related shapes and energies of the sculptures; they are full of movement and the same iridescent colors as the precious-object boxes — although his main focus has been in the 3rd dimension.

Chulyk gained some notoriety with his sensitive and controversial found-artifact Danvers Asylum sculpture produced in conjunction with photographer Jeremy Barnard (also see, on this site). These sculptures went on to live several lives in exhibits in Massachusetts with Barnard and with pasatel-painter Michael Ramseur (also see, on this site), and most of the Danvers sculptures are now in the collection of the Danvers Preservation Fund, Inc., but remain available for exhibit and purchase through ARTSHIP. Now that the historic asylum is demolished, these pieces possess increased historic, if not to say archaeological, significance in addition to their intrinsic appeal as poignant and dramatic works of art.

The industrial found-art sculptures and combines employ varied materials-wood, metals, cloth, string, bone, wire, rivets-- with total assurance while simultaneously posing questions, putting challenges, conducting explorations. They are whimsical, pompous, quiet, regal, disturbing. They range from 1 foot to 15 feet, and most bear hints of shimmering color. They have been represented by ARTSHIP and its "mother ship" gallery Renaissance since 1971, in many galleries in Northern New England, and for the past several years in galleries in Wisconsin.

The small paper pieces are flat but not single-layered; they are full of movement and the same iridescent colors as the precious-object boxes. In a word, gorgeous. We will be opening a page for these the beautiful abstractions-- the SMALL PAPER PIECES -- within the coming months.

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