Andy Im ’25 was the first person to ask for my name in our Painting III: Fresco course. Mariel Capanna, a visiting assistant professor of art, had just admitted me to the class, and I was quite overstimulated by students plastering small squares of cement. However, Andy guided me through the process step by step. It was a moment of kindness that seemed effortless to him, and it is only a single example of how his positive attitude transformed our fresco shop.
Knowing he is a senior art major, I asked last week’s artist, Tina Chen ’25, to show me Andy’s studio. Expecting to see a slew of paintings, you can imagine my shock when wooden sculptures were strewn all over his space. His sculptures had a whimsical figural quality. They reminded me of abstract sprites, covering the studio in kinetic magic. I was sure that he was a professional with immense woodworking experience.
Except he isn’t.
“I started by doodling in the margins of my notebooks throughout middle and high school, but I never took formal art classes until I got to Swarthmore. I only started taking art because a senior recommended [Art Department Chair Logan Grider’s] Drawing I class. He changes how you see the world and, after I took it, I knew I wanted to declare an art major,” Andy shared.
He continued, “He focused on diverging from craft into how to see value, and have fun with [observation]. It makes [viewing] fun. I think that’s the very beginning of why I enjoyed [the class]. Plus, the atmosphere of the class was completely different from anything else I was taking at the time.”
In fact, Andy’s art journey has been nontraditional. He was supposed to graduate in 2022, but took two gap years away from Swarthmore. Given his trajectory, he hasn’t gotten the opportunity to take many sculpture classes. But, his first experience in the field was fairly advanced, with Emeritus Professor Brian Meunier.
“When I took Sculpture II [I skipped Sculpture I], none of the current professors were teaching. I had Professor Meunier, and my class was very small. I would have thought that having three people in a class would be like having too much of a professor’s attention. But he made it feel friendly and supported you with building whatever you wanted to create. He was profoundly accommodating of what we wanted to make, and especially for me, as I had to complete that class in the next semester, which is when COVID happened,” Andy shared.
Andy elaborated on receiving guidance outside the classroom as well. “Aside from Brian, some of my greatest teachers have been the people running the tech shops. Shout out to Jay in the metal workshop! Every time I have a question on how to construct something, or which direction I should go in, [MakerSpace Manager Josh Jordan and the student technicians] have always been immensely helpful.”
Andy feels that the more he learns from the technicians, the closer he comes to discovering meaning behind his work. Right now, he’s focusing on fine-tuning skills to create a more coherent visual language. “Everything in my studio is sketch work, and when it comes to my final senior project, I want to sit down and think how I can accomplish this construction in a way that either is easier to take apart or more resilient. This depends on where it’s situated or how the construction can speak to the overall philosophy behind the work.”
Recently, Andy has been fixated on the messaging behind construction and what emotions he can evoke through his process. These broader questions about materiality have swirled around Andy’s head since he met Richard Rezac. Rezac, a John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship winner, spoke at Swarthmore in the Visiting Artist Speaker Colloquium. After his talk, senior art majors received the opportunity to speak to him directly.
“That was some of the most enlightening twenty minutes I’ve ever had,” Andy said. “What we were focusing on was sort of my art as a springboard for future projects. It was early on in the semester, so I was still figuring out what I wanted to do and what sort of methods I wanted to use. He was telling me to pay attention to the sort of playfulness and emotions that my work creates.”
Andy continued, “Aside from that, we had a lot of fun discussing how I could advance my work by turning from wood to metal, casting some of my sculptures in metal, and how materiality affects each sculpture. To have the chance to chat with a fellow sculptor, one who is very experienced, and has a very developed work, was incredibly rare.”
After his transformative discussion with Rezac, I wondered where Andy is finding messaging. What does he want to convey in his sculpture, and how does he want to play with space in a subversive sense?
“I enjoy controlling how people [approach and interact with] my work, but I haven’t played with it yet. The way it’s situated adds so much importance to it. Usually, my pieces interact with things like walls, corners, and beams. Other than that, I have kinetic sculptures that interact with people or wind. I’m compelled by movement. How does my sculpture make people think of their own body?”
However, Andy’s sculptures are predominantly wooden, a choice that seems far from skin’s velvety texture. With access to a plethora of materials, what is it about wood that particularly interests him?
“Wood is everywhere. It’s a sense of warmth, or home connected to nature. It’s furniture, it’s toys. It has a lot of vernacular associated with it that you can play with. You can make something that defies expectations,” Andy replied.
He continued, “I would say my sculptures are very figural. In that context, I’ve been interested in how the human body moves, and I’ve been bringing that into my sculptures. Recently, I visited an artist in Philly who makes both paintings and sculptures. I found that his sculptures were entrancing, but also there was an element that I felt like he was missing. His sculptures were more in service of his paintings, and they weren’t living their own life as a medium. But as a result, I felt like they lacked some dynamism. They didn’t feel like there was passion there. He had a lot of detail, but I wanted to capture what he was lacking, which is why I started doing figure sculpting.”
In the future, Andy wants to portray emotions that figural sculpture, in particular, evokes. “I’m entranced by size, and I want to make something eight or nine feet tall. I want adults to feel like children around my work, and evoke emotion, whether that be wrath or sloth. I want my viewers to feel like children realizing that their parents are tired. What can you do? You’re kind of just there for the spectacle. You can’t really change anything in their lives.”
Andy’s story is inspiring. Despite his nontraditional arts background, Andy has found a sense of home and belonging within the studio. By the end of our interview, he was just as radiant as that first day in Fresco.
In the last minute of our interview, smiling ear to ear, he shared, “Regardless [of] if you’re an art major or if you’re interested in art, just do it. Talk to someone if you know someone who can help you start, but don’t let them steer you too much, and just try it out. Pay attention to how you feel in the process and have fun. You can’t be motivated to do something you’re not enthralled by.
