Press Release: Foyer is excited to present Dead Trees and Other Pretty Things, an exhibition of new works by Andy Harris, opening November 7th from 5:00-9:00pm at 16 W Broad street, through December 20th.

Dead Trees and Other Pretty Things continues Harris’s ongoing exploration of collage as a painterly language rooted in the transformation of everyday materials. Each work begins with hand-painted paper – cut, torn, and reassembled – creating layered compositions where structure and spontaneity coexist. The surface becomes a record of actions: painting, cutting, arranging, revising and layering.

In this new body of work, fragments of the observed world; branches, shadows, man-made structures, are abstracted into rhythmic fields of color and form. The push and pull between geometry and gesture animates the compositions, revealing Harris’s ongoing dialogue with modern abstraction and the material poetry of collage.

If “dead trees” refers to paper itself, these pieces give that material new life: evidence of renewal, attention, and the quiet persistence of making.

Bio: Andy Harris is Norfolk-based educator and collage artist whose work explores the tension between control and spontaneity through the process of painted paper. He has exhibited widely across Virginia, North Carolina, and New York, with recent solo shows at Assembly Norfolk, and Virginia MOCA. A two-time VCCA resident, Harris has collaborated with Apple, EA Sports, and the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, and his work appears in the Dollar Tree Corporate Collection. His art has been featured in Contemporary Collage Magazine, Abstract Mag, and on NPR’s Arts Undercurrent.