Dear Diary: Andy Bauch

Posted by Robin Redd on Wednesday, February 3, 2016 · 2 Comments

I met Andy Bauch through a mutual friend on the internet. That is to say, I’ve never ‘met’ Andy Bauch. We posted an article about his work a couple of weeks back on Art Nerd LA & he’s got a solo show opening this coming weekend in Los Angeles.

Despite his busy days getting ready for the show, Andy was willing to give us a digital studio visit so we can see the process of how his bright & fun lego mosaics come together.

His opening is Saturday February 6 2016 – contact Los Angeles County Store for more info.

Follow Andy Bauch here:

Instagram @andybauch

Web http://andybauch.com

Twitter @andybauch

These days I’m at work on two major projects. The first is an interactive, crowdsourced 17,100 LEGO piece portrait of famous photorealist painter Chuck Close, which I’m calling Up Close. Since Chuck works by gridding out a photo and painstakingly reproducing each square on the canvas, I thought it would be fun to do the same, and I’m inviting the 50,000 attendees of Night on Broadway to participate. The second project, which I’m just about done with, is an upcoming show “Pixelated City” at the Los Angeles County Store in Silver Lake. For that show I’ve prepared three more pieces in a series I’ve been working on for about a year which depicts famous Los Angeles landmarks.

Blocky Charms! - photo courtesy of the artist

My day starts with a cup of tea and a bowl of Blocky Charms™ to wake up. They’re super low in sugar and great for detoxing.

Then it’s time to tiptoe upstairs to the studio space. Gotta be careful not to step on any stray LEGO bricks.

There are a whole bunch of LEGO colors. For my Chuck Close portrait I’ve restrained myself a little bit and used just 20, so the crowd isn’t overwhelmed by the options.

The Up Close project is divided into 6x6 LEGO stud sections so participants can work on simple little chunks. I time how long it takes me to complete some of them so that I can estimate how many people will need to work at the simultaneously to finish it in the six hours we have at Night on Broadway.

The Up Close project is divided into 6×6 LEGO stud sections so participants can work on simple little chunks. I time how long it takes me to complete some of them so that I can estimate how many people will need to work at the simultaneously to finish it in the six hours we have at Night on Broadway.

Here’s what Up Close looks like up close. It’s only about 10% completed now.

Seems I'm craving a cup of the weird dandelion/chicory root tea that my girlfriend somehow got me hooked on. It's hard to pour soy milk and photograph with the other...

Seems I’m craving a cup of the weird dandelion/chicory root tea that my girlfriend somehow got me hooked on. It’s hard to pour soy milk with one hand and photograph with the other…

I need to glue a few final pieces onto Pixelated City. When I first figured out how to glue LEGO I tried to buy syringe needles at a few pharmacies and they all thought I was a drug addict.

These pieces are ready to hang, but first…

Better hang with Malone, the world’s fluffiest dog for a few minutes, and then I’m out.

I head out to the Los Angeles County Store to install Pixelated City with the help of my buddy Jake. The show opens on February 6th at 6pm.

Time to grab a burrito at the old El Hermano on the way home. And then it will probably be a late night of designing new mosaic concepts and compulsively checking my Klout score, the usual.