Feature by Nathan Cho
Photos by Aliaya Nesru
Andre Adonnino (CC’26) is a junior studying Biochemistry. He is also a pre-med student. Andre primarily works in the medium of drawing and his go-to tools for this are a simple black pen and white paper. Andre finds artistic inspiration in the body and its many contortions while infusing all of his work with the “scribble.” Andre leans into the line and the restraint and freedom of it. He often fuses his medical studies with his artistic passions.
I had barely put my bag and jacket down when I looked up to see Andre Adonnino (CC ‘26) standing there eager and early – really early. He showed up twenty minutes before our scheduled interview. There was a lot I had hoped to do in those twenty minutes: print out my notes, go to the bathroom, assemble my recording, and generally look at least somewhat presentable. Caught off guard, I quickly rushed through my preparations and tried to compose a setting for our interview. As Andre began, I grew glad for his early arrival. Andre’s story, rich and compelling, was barely contained within those twenty extra minutes and surely would’ve been incomplete if he had come on time.
Andre’s journey with art is one filled with twists and turns. Although Andre’s love and passion for art is palpable, he intentionally resists any formal education of it. In fact, he is currently a Pre-Med student studying biochemistry. Andre cites his experience with arts education in high school as having contributed to his complicated views on formal arts education. In high school, so much importance was placed on realism. However, this strict emphasis wasn't something that spoke to him. During this time, Andre found himself spiraling in the competition of art, pushing himself against standards that he himself didn’t embrace or aspire to meet. Art began to lose its expressive value– becoming a means to a competitive end. As Andre transitioned out of that environment and came to Columbia, he wanted to free his art of competitive pressures. Now, art is something he orients around himself and his community. In his personal journal, Andre sketches though many of these drawings never see the public light. Now, his growth comes from consistent personal practice and community interaction. His community provides a space where his art can grow without being restricted.
Smoke Break
However, this is not to say that Andre entirely opposes an arts education. In fact, one of the most influential experiences in his artistic career came from an interaction with his high school art teacher. She was the first teacher to shake Andre’s confidence and tell him “NO.” This was Andre’s first experience with the semblance of failure. He felt shaken by his teacher's critical assessment of his artwork. The teacher provided him with valuable criticism that proved vital to his artistic practice. Andre describes this experience as crucial to the development of his art. This encounter pushed him to invest more in his practice while starting to shake him from the perfectionist mentality that constrained him early on. He still keeps in contact with that teacher today. Over the three years he’s been at Columbia, he has slowly recuperated art as a practice for himself. This focus on the self is a distinguishing quality of Andre’s style. Having moved away from the standards and confines of hyperrealism, Andre has stripped drawings down to their basics.
Puppeteering
Andre's drawing style is primarily characterized by black pen on paper. These drawings are usually sparse in background and center around figures in dynamic contortions that emphasize the possibility of the human–particularly masculine– form. In these dialed down compositions, the line gains a special importance. This line, as it traces and forms the body, is a key subject of exploration for Andre. Just as Andre resists the conventional route of arts education, so does he resist the expectations of the line. In Andre’s drawings, line has the equal power of creating form and destroying it. Lines create the arms and legs as they fling in various positions, but they also leap out and form webs and tentacles that at once distinguish and blur the figure. These “tentacles” have become exaggerated over time as Andre himself began to reckon with his impulse towards them. According to Andre, his exploration of line is “the fun part” that imbues a piece with emotion while also controlling the weight of his composition. These tentacles perform the dual purpose of technical and emotive weight.
Faux
This focus on form and figure explains, in part, the running motif of Spiderman present in much of Andre’s work and life. Whether he’s sporting a Spiderman T-shirt around campus, filling his sketchbook with him, or setting him as his phone background, Spiderman has always been one of Andre’s biggest and longest-lasting inspirations, a fact he is not ashamed of. On an artistic level, Spiderman acts as an important exercise in form. Spiderman is often associated with iconic poses that push the boundaries of the body as he is flinging through the air or swinging through cities. Spiderman has also always played an important role in Andre's personal life – having been introduced to his comics from a young age. Spiderman’s intelligence and ambition made him an aspirational figure for Andre who reflected that: “It’s good to have heroes.” And to the people who think his inspiration is childish or cringe, Andre offers straightforward response: “F**k the haters.” Andre knows who he is and what he loves unabashedly. He demonstrates that whether in art or life, “sophistication” is overrated.
Face Front
As Andre has formed his own identity through and with his art, he has been able to take a personal and unique approach to art. As Chief Illustrator for the Columbia Science Review, Andre combines his interests and passions together. However, his multifaceted practice is not just confined to Columbia’s campus. Andre is a project manager for the Dementia Art Therapy Alliance where he practices art as a form of healing. Working with patients suffering from dementia, Andre implements a collaborative and emotionally attuned approach to artistic creation. Art becomes an active site for healing and connection that is really important to Andre and speaks to the value of art past its technical expectation. Andre was able to expand this work as he was brought onto a pilot program for the Lenox Hill Hospital where he had the opportunity to meet with patients one-on-one and draw as they engage in conversation. Art becomes a space where patients can listen and be heard. It’s a place where even the cagiest let their guard down and share a story that Andre can immortalize through his drawings. Art is a practice as much as it is a craft, and Andre engages with it in all its unique facets. His layered understanding of art is something he owes to his occupation of both the scientific and artistic realm. His experience at the intersection of different disciplines is a huge reason why he sees the “divide” between these two spaces– art and science– as “stupid.” They intersect and rely on each other in so many ways, and this is a truth that Andre not only knows but practices.
Winged
Andre’s artwork is constantly changing, and he is open to anything and everything that could help his art grow. So, his future is hard to predict. Although he currently works in black pen, Andre expressed a keen interest in color. Though it isn’t necessarily evident in his current, public artwork, he assured me that color is something he is investigating in private. He wants to ensure that he truly has a handle on color before publicizing it in any of his pieces. Color opens a huge realm of possibility that he wishes to investigate for himself first. With this intention comes to light another important aspect of Andre’s artistic philosophy: the process is just as important as the product. Andre sees the process of creation as if not more important than what is left at the end. If Andre doesn’t find himself enjoying and indulging in the process, he sees very little purpose in the product. This philosophy takes shape in Andre’s handle of time. Rather than slaving away at a piece for the purpose of unattainable hyperrealism, Andre prefers the spontaneity of flash drawing. He finds himself feeling more empowered and connected to the process when engaging in flash drawing. Importantly, his fast-paced drawing is not indicative of a lack of artistic dedication. Andre leans into time and allows it to have its own influence on his artwork. In this sense, time becomes its own space– one where he can push himself and discover new techniques or practices as he races against the clock. Just like the adage goes, for Andre, the journey is more important than the destination.
Andre hopes to always have art in his life, despite his career path not going directly into the art field. He views art as a crucial outlet for expression that he hopes to continue to tap into both formally such as in medicine and informally in ways like his doodling. He sees the interweaving of medicine and art as endless– particularly in the realm of volunteering. He hopes to continue the work he currently does as a volunteer throughout his career. Andre is also interested in investigating some new forms of drawing that engage with medicine more explicitly like anatomical drawings or medical illustrations that push his focus on form to new contexts.
MAE Skateboard
You can follow Andre’s ever-growing practice on Instagram @vowelful where he goes by the pseudonym: vowel. He is also trying to get more involved in showing off his work. He has already sold prints for the Morningside Art Exchange and has even drawn on a skateboard that was raffled off at one of MAE’s events. Keep your eyes on MAE for future appearances of Andre’s art.