Andy Mister: I always knew it would come to this

Andy Mister: I always knew it would come to this is Mister’s third presentation with Rebecca Camacho Presents and includes a new suite of still life drawings rendered in the artist’s signature medium, pastel on linen. Mister's process is rooted in photography, and he primarily works directly from historically sourced images. Over the last few years, Mister began working almost exclusively in pastel, a medium with a long and rich history, but that is most frequently connected to Impressionist artists, including Edgar Degas, Mary Cassatt, and Berthe Morisot, amongst others, who reinvigorated and popularized the medium in the 19th century. In a myriad of richly saturated hues, Mister’s pastel still-lifes utilize the specific capabilities of the medium, featuring precise details alongside blended and densely saturated passages of color. The works in I always knew it would come to this evoke feelings of nostalgia and a longing for moments lost or past. Indeed, time is a key component in these works, which feature luscious bouquets of flowers represented in full bloom, at the peak of their beauty. These brief and fleeting moments are forever crystallized in Mister’s pastels.

Most of the floral arrangements in this new body of work are derived from books about flowers that Mister acquired at secondhand stores. He uses the photographs in these books as a starting point for a method of production that artists have utilized since the advent of photography in the 19th century. Gesturing to these historical referents, Mister often embraces color choices that can be attributed to the photographic processes that inform his work, hearkening back to the history of the medium through the reddish-brown hues of sepia-toned prints and the rich blues of the cyanotype. Two drawings in I always knew it would come to this were produced in collaboration with Oakland based multi-disciplinary artist, Tosha Stimage. Her floral bouquets serve as the source imagery for Saint Flora (2024) and Saint Flora II (2024), named for Stimage’s floral studio in San Francisco.