FEATURED ARTIST OF 2016
Andrew Rehs
His art is a means to channel and transform his own interpretations of emotion into works of transformative art through the realm of contemporary taxidermy art. To Rehs, the idea of a skull and the emotions that it evokes has always been intriguing, representing the many different elements of life a well as the transformation that occurs when death produces new life. When referencing the idea of death, Reh’s art not only eludes to the actual loss of human life, but also to the end of a difficult era of someone’s life, the breakthrough of a regressed memory, the conquering of a fear, the “ah ha” moment that occurs during a deep train of thought. Each one of Reh’s pieces is meant to evoke that guttural emotion that promotes change. Regardless of the emotion, simply seeing an emotional shift in the viewers’ experience is satisfaction to this artist.
Andrew Rehs AKA Beautiful Maladies is a Chicago-based artist who also happens to be a professional therapist. Having the opportunity to absorb countess variations of the human experience allows Rehs to gain insight into the power that emotions have on humanity, or at times, inhumanity. He strongly feels that emotions serve three major purposes in our life. They are meant to communicate when something is in need of a change, motivate us to change situations that provide negative emotions, and validate for us that change is appropriate in one’s current state of being.