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Whether through animation, performance pieces or paintings, artist Andrew Linskens takes the term “blending” to a whole new level. Linskens’ pieces appear chaotic at first glance, but soon take viewers on an expressionistic roller coaster ride they never want to end.

Linskens, a 37-year-old Green Bay resident, dove into art at a very young age.

Andrew Linskens

“I was always known as the ‘art guy’ as a kid; I was always drawing and sketching,” he says. “Over a course of time, I continued to work on my pieces and thought to myself, ‘I guess I’m an artist.’ Now, I’ve been painting for over 20 years and consider myself a sort of anti-artist.”

After attending college at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, Linskens pursued a career as a meteorologist. Though a brief career choice, it did help shape him as an artist and influence his work. “A lot of my pieces are influenced by pop culture, as well as technology and science.”

Now an animator and art director at NorthCoast Productions, Linskens’ main art form is painting, though he does dabble in sculpting as well. His paintings contain many different images, from human faces to animals to industrial tools. The result is a turbulent blend of disorder and order.

“I want people to look at my painting and be comfortable with the uncomfortable. They can look at the painting from 20 yards away and see something different than when they stand up close,” he says. “The idea is to see images within images within images. It’s like what a child sees in the clouds.”

This past October, Linskens performed a solo show at The ARTgarage in Green Bay – that’s right, performed. Linskens explains he was inspired by the link between hip-hop and graffiti in the 1980s that generated a new wave of art into the decade.

“I am very interested in blending music and painting,” he says. “I have a performance piece where I paint with accompanying music playing. It creates a whole new experience and a certain intimacy for the people watching.”

In the future, Linskens hopes to do more performance pieces with computerized sounds.

Visit andrewlinskens.com for more of Andrew’s artwork.

—FC