West Wind: Andrew Kuo

At the top of a mountain, wind is always present. It moves across meadows and plains, through forests and open sky, carrying sound, weather, and fragments of history. Andrew Kuo explores such movement in paintings branded with austere yet evocative titles. Works like Meadow Lark, The Great Plains, Blue Spruce, and Forest Song reveal landscapes as a living field of energy rather than a fixed view. In the paintings comprising Kuo’s first solo exhibition at Hexton Gallery, wind seems to slowly shape the land while remaining in constant motion, carrying with it the sense of permanence and transience that defines life in Aspen.

Time unfolds through the seasons. Works such as October Snow, January, February, and March trace subtle shifts in atmosphere, marking how change accumulates quietly, day by day. Even as the landscape feels enduring, it is continually reformed through cycles of weather and light. These rhythms leave lasting impressions, even for those who have never been here. They give rise to a sense of place that borders on the mythic. Kuo seems connected to this idea, understanding that myths are histories carried forward, shaped as they travel, much like the wind itself.

Although he has never been to Aspen, Andrew Kuo’s practice unfolds through extensive research and sustained looking. His Brooklyn-based studio acts as his window to the world, where the artist pores over internet-based imagery, personal memory, and art-historical references to find his own sense of place among the myths. There is an echo here of bygone eras, when artists like Rousseau filtered exotic locals through their own local lens, perpetuating these myths. Similarly, Kuo engages with Colorado from a distance, creating what might be understood as a form of visual correspondence to a place at the edge of a world. 

Andrew’s paintings capture the essence of a landscape through gesture and abstraction, unfolding effortlessly despite their complex layering. Titles such as The Flowers and the Moon, The Western Mountain Light, and West Wind point toward sensation rather than narrative. They suggest moments of alignment between light and feeling. These paintings deftly register motion, accumulation, and duration, while the myths contained within only reveal themselves if one’s attention lingers long enough.