Awareness: Andrew Cadima

"insomnia", oil on panel

Another Instagram discovery of mine over the past few years is oil painter Andrew Cadima. Interestingly, his main focus began as music. He received the Agnes Albert Scholarship to attend the San Francisco Conservatory of Music where he earned a bachelor and master's degrees in composition. After building a strong career in music, he decided to completely pivot to painting, in which he had no background. Eventually, he gained such a talent that he began making work not just to show but to teach others, amassing a large following of those eager to learn from his unique uses of light, color, and expression in his often surreal oil portraits.

One of Cadima's projects is a series of surreal self portraits, featuring an amalgamation of misplaced features surrounded by brushstrokes full of character. One of the pieces, "insomnia," is a personal favorite of mine for its composition, which almost resembles a hand with its five brushstroke prongs and receding base below.

The way in which Cadima uses light is remarkable; he always seems to achieve the perfect highlights and shadows. From his videos, I've seen how he utilizes not just values and color but also texture in order to work in shadows and highlights. Some of his experiments on Instagram have included complete portraits using only a warmer and cooler shade of black, as seen in "blackout" below. He often uses a thick glob of the darkest black as a highlight, utilizing its gloss and texture rather than value to make an impossible highlight.

"blackout," oil on panel; utilizes only two shades of black, with the whites coming only from the reflection of light

Cadima's range of works and experiments inspire me to stretch my own understandings of color and texture and to not be afraid of incorporating surreal elements.