Andrew Mezei is a Melbourne based artist. His parents escaped from Hungary during the 1956 revolution and arrived in Australia as refugees the following year. Andrew grew up in his parent’s leather-goods workshop, which was steeped in a culture of fine European craftsmanship.

That workshop tradition, had a deep and lasting influence, and is reflected in his painting; Andrew’s aesthetic is fused to a pursuit of technical excellence and is expressed through a closely observed naturalism. This naturalism is not slavishly descriptive, but instead interprets our world and to an extent reshapes it.

His painting is informed by science and emotionally charged by the unprecedented contradictions of our time; a world which teeters on the edge of ecological destruction, and at the same time stands to reap immense wealth both physically and philosophically from an exponential growth in human knowledge. As an artist he is compelled to respond to these competing possibilities of the human condition.

Andrew obtained a bachelor of fine art from RMIT in 1983, and later studied old master techniques under the guidance of Richard Clements. He has won a number of awards including the prestigious John Leslie Art Prize. Andrew uses Dutch Masters’ techniques from the baroque period. He incorporates the finest pigments (some of which are rare), resins and oils into his painting, and grinds most of his own colours. All this is done in pursuit of creating luminous, jewel-like paintings of transcendent beauty.