Andrea Boyer and the poetics of time

ABW427 2020 (Covid 19) drawing on Schoellers paper 42,3x29,8.

By MANUELA ACCINNO September 14, 2024

Time and impermanence, themes deeply connected to the understanding of the role of contemporary human beings, emerge in a refined and evocative manner in the drawings of artist Andrea Boyer. Through the meticulous depiction of images, the artist reflects on the ephemerality of the human condition and the incessant passing of time, inviting the viewer to reflect on the transience of life and the inevitability of change. A powerful reflection on the relationship between time and individuality emerges in these works. His drawings are inhabited by human figures and objects, which occupy an indefinite space. The latter, in fact, are not only what we observe, but also what we are, what we have experienced, what we desire. Individuals, on the other hand, often faceless, seem to float suspended between the past and the present, like silent witnesses of an existence made fragilely eternal by its very evanescence. Their presence becomes an emblem of the multiple identities that contemporary man can assume, thus expressing the myriad facets of existence itself. Boyer, however, does not merely conceptualize this feeling, but expresses it in a precise visual language. In delicate and vibrant strokes, lines become traces of time, graphisms that recall the urgency of gestures as much as the ephemerality of life. The details of each work are rendered with accurate realism, capturing the fleeting moment of an existence that eludes the observer.

ABW389 2019 drawing on paper 24,7x24,2

Each element portrayed acquires an almost metaphysical aura. The artist manages to capture not only the physical substance of the elements, but also their ‘being in the world’, creating a silent dialogue between things and their existential context. Metaphysics is rooted in their impermanence; the subjects drawn by Boyer, despite their physicality, speak to us of an absence, an emptiness that is essential for understanding the whole. Their fixity confronts us with the paradox of existence: each element is a memory, a moment of life before vanishing, reminding us that every act of creation is also an act of destruction. Andrea Boyer, in this sense, invades the realm of the immaterial, leading the viewer to consider the fragility of things. The muted colors, soft lights and shadows dancing on the objects tell a story of anticipation and melancholy. It is as if to suggest to us that every moment is precious, that beauty is not only in durability, but in its opposite, in the ability to welcome inevitable change.

ABW452 2020 42,8x30 drawing on Fabriano black paper

The perfection of a still life, or of a body, becomes the testimony of a reality in which the human being is part of, but from which he feels estranged. What emerges from his work is an investigation into the meaning of living, a process of existential research that never finds a definitive answer, but dwells on continuous questioning. What remains for us then is an invitation: that the proximity of what surrounds us may become the starting point for a reconsideration of our existence, to discover that the ‘truth is here’, in the infinitesimal details of things, in the fragments of life that make up our journey. WM