A closer look: Andrew Kernan – All Down On The Ground

by Mira Moiseyev

There is a fundamental desire to know within the human condition, which Andrew Kernan foregrounds in his practice.

Andrew Kernan, Contact Us.

This notion is visualised in faint imagery and layered surfaces that create an elusive effect between presence and absence.

As Kernan puts it,

Once I think I am at a place of ‘knowing’, I quickly forget.

Kernan’s practice can be read as a meditation on this epistemological struggle, of recurring moments of knowing and unknowing.
Centrally concerned with perpetual change and the recurring concern to hold on to what is fading, his practice is both one of preservation but also one of “separating and moving on”. For the viewer, this implies a moment of reflection — to step back and look at the ephemeral, suggestive qualities that resist being pinned down. Ultimately, his process resolves in the idea that:

In order to be present, you have to realise you were absent; in order to enjoy a painting, you have to forget you are looking at it. Forgetting where you are in order to remember correctly.

This ethos reflects the overarching theme of All Down on the Ground, an exhibition thematising presence and grounding. When reflecting on the show’s curation, Kernan expressed his excitement “to be included alongside such great artists”, noting the exhibition’s “flowing cohesion” in which each work supported the next.

When faced with life’s blurry, elusive and liminal aspects, it can be difficult to stay grounded — Kernan’s work draws our attention to this, offering the viewer a moment of rest.

The struggle to know — to find epistemological certainty — runs through both Kernan’s physical process and the works themselves. He describes his “tastes, interests and direction” as constantly changing and evolving. The instability he experiences in the studio — in terms of influence and direction — translates directly into the works, reaffirming the constant cycle of change that defines his practice.

I like to consider my painting to be ambient in genre, where I explore themes of memory of place, the repeated journey, and those in-between moments. Being found in the repetition where one switches off and reaches a point.

As philosopher Thomas Nagel observes, “a creative individual externalises the best part of himself, producing with incredible effort something better than he is, which can float free of its creator and have a finer existence of its own.” Kernan’s process seems to echo this idea — his work emerging from “great instability” of shifting tastes, interests and influences, yet achieving a self-contained clarity once realised.

Kernan’s mixed-media contributions to All Down on the Ground are framed by Danish artist Tal R.’s line, “I look at all these places as though they will disappear at any second”, which sums up his aim with these exhibited works. Kernan notes he is drawn to Tal R. for “the way he thinks about how he makes works (…) he does not take himself too seriously”. There is something in that lightness — an acceptance that the human condition is one of constant change and evolution. Everything is change, but change is also growth: a strength that defines Kernan’s evolving, expanding practice.

A hallmark of Kernan’s art is his long, evocative titles, which often feel almost narrative and gently guide the viewer’s reading of the piece. His ritual for naming involves “jotting down random sentences when rambling”, then later “accessing this archive, digging through and attaching what feels right”. It is an intuitive process. When a work has a specific objective, the title can act as an “extra point of entry”.

For Kernan, titling is “the last hurdle before completion — the joy of finally stepping back and moving on”. This act of moving on becomes a necessary condition of growth; one cannot linger indefinitely. Titling offers a moment of reflection — and reflection, too, is essential to knowing. These moments, just before forgetting again, are perhaps the ones that feel most whole — an idea tangential to Kernan’s wider artistic interests.

I am currently relating to work that is subtle, suggestive and hard to pin down exactly; it has this sort of push and pull — something to get lost in.

Andrew Kernan, Clouds forming around extinguished wicks desiring to be lit alive but the gas is empty.

In many ways, Kernan’s description of “something to get lost in” encapsulates the epistemological tension running through his work — the ever-evolving nature of knowledge. His art thrives in that space of suggestion and suspension, where to forget becomes a mode of remembering, and uncertainty becomes its own quiet form of clarity.