Andrew Alba

Andrew Alba welcomes us into his Salt Lake City studio and talks about chance, construction, and weird furniture. Read our conversation below.

Where are you from, and where do you reside?

I was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. I moved around Utah most of my life, then left the state for most of my 20’s, but eventually ended up back here in Salt Lake City, where I have been residing for the last 8 years.

What necessities do you require when making your art?

Music has always been a necessity in the studio, along with plenty of coffee.

Describe a typical day in the studio for you.

Typically, I spend the first 30-60 minutes just looking at what I worked on the previous day. I'll clean the studio and study some drawings I have made, then I typically start painting, not knowing what the piece will become.

What is the most difficult part of the artistic process for you?

Drawing and making studies. I fell in love with drawing as a child, and I still love it just as much, but something about drawing is harder than painting for me. There are fewer solutions and, in a way, more questions when it comes to composition and subject matter. It is essential for the process, and I will always love to draw, but it can be difficult to start when painting is where I have fun.

Are there any aspects of your process that are left to chance?

Most of my work is left to chance, although I do make a lot of studies and drawings that could become paintings, but it rarely happens. Most of my finished pieces have 4-5 different paintings underneath. This leaves room for a lot of texture to build up from the oil paint and underpaintings that I couldn’t have ever planned. I don’t like feeling like I have control over the painting, so I try to leave most of it up to chance. For me, I don’t feel like I create ideas, but recognize them when they show up.

How do you choose your materials?

Oil paint is my medium of choice, but a lot of my materials come from my side job as a contractor. I reuse drop cloths from job sites for the large drawings and drywall mud for my sculptures. I like the idea of using these blue-collar materials and inserting them into an unfamiliar world from both sides.

How has your work developed in the past few years, and how do you see it evolving in the future?

The past three years have been show after show throughout the country. I feel very lucky to be busy in this way, and it has helped maintain a practice of sitting with one idea for months at a time to focus on the theme of the show. At this time, I don’t have any shows planned for a few months, and it is a welcome change in the process of moving slowly and meditating on the work that I have made these previous years.

When did you begin your current practice?

I have always drawn and painted for as long as I can remember. While in high school, I had a group of friends that would go to the local university every Saturday for figure drawing sessions. These Saturdays allowed me to witness mature artists working and also furthered my understanding of what one could do with drawing. I pushed these skills for many years, not really considering pursuing art as a career until I was 24 and was going through a work-related injury from a welding job I had. I couldn’t work for 9 months, and during this time I discovered a more poetic approach to drawing and painting where I abandoned many traditional sides of the work and turned inward to explore the process that only I was capable of navigating. It was during this time that I knew painting was all I wanted to do.

How did you develop your current style? What led you to this process and how did you know it was the right one to pursue?

I feel like my current style is a mixture of everything I have done the last 20 years. I will sometimes do a piece that reminds me of something I did 10 years ago, or be surprised to see something from 10 years ago and revisit it with the knowledge I have acquired since then. I do have many bodies of work that differ in style, and that stems from staying excited about the current work. I like to feel challenged when I paint and have a lot of problems to work through. I will often get tired of a body of work after 10 or so pieces and feel the need to move on and explore new directions, aesthetics or feelings with the work. I do believe there is a few constants in the work that appear and probably always will. But my overall goal while painting is to communicate as clearly as possible and enjoy doing the work. If I’m anxious or not enjoying what I’m doing, then I will typically scrap the piece and start over.

How do your surroundings direct your approach to your work?

Yes, I do find that my environment influences my work. I think it is only natural that the things I see and witness every day end up in the work somehow. Everything is a symbol that can be communicated in different ways.  My studio is on my property here in Salt Lake City, and my partner and I spend a lot of time gardening and taking care of our babies. So they both end up in the work, whether it's a floral arrangement my partner put together, or kids toys, and even the feeling of exhaustion that naturally comes with raising kids. I also live in one of the most beautiful deserts here in Utah. The colors were naturally seared into my brain, from the Great Salt Lake, to the mountains, and the sunsets.  These colors have become a natural part of the language used in the work.

What tangible objects or intangible moments are you most interested in representing through your works?

The figure and flowers have always been a big interest to me. I have always tried to “fracture” these subjects in a way that creates a narrative and represents emotions and complexities that we all carry. 

What themes or motifs are you consistently drawn to?

I think labor would be a big one for me. Sometimes it's obvious in the subject matter of painting laborers, and other times it comes through with the texture of the pieces that come from consistently scraping the piece and having the paint build up. I like to see pieces that feel as if they have been labored on, like cliffs being beaten by waves and weather for years. I think aesthetically this can appear as “ugly”, but it is something that I find a lot of beauty in.

How does technique and material inform the final piece?

I rely a lot on intuition for the work to come about. I have incorporated making mistakes into the process; scraping a part of the painting or the whole painting itself will add a layer of texture and underpainting that I would never have planned out. So a lot of what I do I feel like is recognizing what I want in a piece as opposed to creating what I want. Although I sometimes do both.

Is there another hobby or interest of yours that has influenced your practice? Does one inform the other?

The last year or so, I have been building a lot of furniture. I started doing construction work when I was 18 and carried that on for 20 years, so it's nice to build things with a more artistic approach to it. I rarely use a measuring tape, and it feels like I’m creating sculptures that I use around the yard and in the house. It’s been a nice break to step out of the studio and work on some of those things. It definitely informs the work in ways that I wouldn’t have thought possible. Working in the 3D world can do a lot to better understand what is happening in the 2D world of a painting.

Are you influenced by any author or non-visual artist? Are you influenced by any artist that does something completely different than you?

Yes, I think that most of my inspiration doesn’t come from other painters. I can enjoy and appreciate what other painters do, but it rarely makes me want to get in the studio and paint. Most of the time, when I feel inspired from other artists, it is from musicians or poets. I feel like with poetry, there are so many similarities in the abstractions they pull from words.

Do you remember the first work of art that captured your attention?

Yes, it was a Diego Rivera print of The Flower Carrier that was hanging in my grandparents' house. I didn’t know the importance of that artist until later, but they had a lot of his prints and other notable Mexican painters hanging in their house throughout my childhood. I can recall staring at that one in particular and following the curvature of the flowers and how it mirrored the woman carrying them. I was young and captivated, but didn’t know why at the time. I feel lucky to think back on those memories of fresh-smelling tortillas in the house with great art hanging.

Do you admire or draw inspiration from any of your peers who are also working now? Have you ever collaborated, or would you? How solitary is your art-making process?

One of my favorite painters happens to be one of my best friends. Nathaniel C. Praska, who is based out of Oregon. I got the chance to share a studio with him for almost 6 years. The conversations were always great, and the reciprocation of ideas was always flowing. We continue to talk a lot still about our work and what we are thinking, even though we are in different states now. His work is definitely something to mediate on.

I have never collaborated with any other painter and I can’t see myself ever doing that. My work requires a lot of solitude and uninterrupted space.

Is there any artwork on display in your home? Whose is it?

Most of the art hanging on the walls currently is Navajo art and Mexican folk art. I typically don’t hang any of my own work up unless it's an intentional wall sculpture made for the space. However, my partner happens to like some of my work and took the liberty of hanging some of the floral pieces up.

What’s one of your favorite objects you own? What’s the story?

Probably my coffee mug. My 7-year-old daughter is a prolific artist and probably my favorite contemporary artist. She wakes up at night and feels inspired to draw all the time. I have many sketchbooks of hers locked away and safe. But my coffee mug was made by her mother, and she transferred my daughter's first self-portrait onto it. It’s a beautiful drawing, and I get to be reminded of her inspiration every time I make coffee (which is often).

Is there something people would be surprised to learn about you?

I find a lot of people are surprised I didn’t go to art school. Or that I worked construction for nearly 20 years.

What’s next for you?

I currently have a little break from shows, so I’m intentionally painting slowly (which is hard for me), but I’ve been happy with the results and am excited to show them when the time comes. In January, I’ll be exhibiting at Uprise Art. But for now, I’m just painting, building weird furniture, and hanging out with babies.

Where do you see the work in ten years?

I would hope that I’m surprised by it if I were to see it right now. I hope that it feels honest and fresh and like a continuation of the process with an extra ten years of life behind me.

Published October 2, 2025