Andrea Willems uses painting as a means of self-reflection – a way to process everyday experiences and make inner landscapes visible. Her works speak of memory, transformation, and the search for balance between emotion and form. Raised in San Antonio, Texas, she spent her summers in rural Wisconsin. Later she lived on both the East and West Coasts of the United States, gathering impressions in Chicago, New York, Vermont, and Northern California. These geographical and emotional experiences continue to shape her work – as images of memory, colors, and atmospheres that flow into her abstract pictorial spaces.
Andrea Willems considers herself an intuitive painter. Her works rarely follow a predetermined plan; instead, they evolve organically through the process of painting itself. Color, movement, and material engage in a constant dialogue. Layer by layer, she applies paint, scratches, wipes, and overlays it – creating structures that oscillate between abstraction and the suggestion of landscape or figure. The act of painting becomes a form of reflection in motion, a dynamic interplay of control and release.
Although her paintings often appear spontaneous, Willems’ artistic practice extends far beyond the moment of creation. Sketches, notes, photographs, and color studies accompany her process – preparation begins long before she ever picks up a brush. Her works evolve alongside her life: new places and experiences bring forth new themes, palettes, and forms.
In her paintings, Andrea Willems weaves together landscape, still life, and abstraction to explore personal narratives of memory, place, loss, and transformation. Through vibrant colors, transparent layers, and a sensitive materiality, she draws attention to the transient and the ephemeral – to those subtle transitions in which life unfolds its quiet poetry.