Layers upon layers of entrapment.  I want to convey this state, where we cannot access the world and the world cannot access us. We all, to some degree, create our own environments and wear them like a shell around us. It is a suit that keeps us alive, but also prevents us from fully experiencing life. 

Everybody can at times feel like an astronaut, trapped inside a suit, inaccessible to the world. It's not a feeling of being without people, but more of a psychological isolation. Inside and outside can get confused. Alone, the ego is left without motivation. A lack of stimulus and companionship leaves a sense of emptiness.  All that remains is survival – fending for ourself and reverting back to our primal roots. 

It is the contrast between the urban wasteland and the natural environment that the astronaut explores. That dichotomy between the developed and the natural is perhaps one of the greatest battles we are facing today. The more our technology surrounds us, the more important the essential things of life become. In cities, a sense of the man-made gives a sense of familiarity, but if there is no life, an alienation and haunting silence takes hold. Thoughts turn inward. Sometimes it is like I am in a ghost town in my heart. We strive for companionship, and without it, we are driven into melancholy and estrangement. It is not the humility of reverence but of self-abasement.

Protection and isolation are almost synonymous. We are all anonymous astronauts wrapped in that which we need to survive. There is loneliness, both inside of the suit and outside in the environment. Which is the greater torment?

Andrew is an artist that likes spacemen, bubbles and Canadian Hunter.

He received his BFA from The University of Colorado, Boulder and is in progress earning his MFA from the University of Utah.

All Works available for purchase. Email if interested andrewrice82@gmail.com