Andrew
Pumpelly

Painting as a way of thinking

Andrew Pumpelly is a painter completing a BFA in Painting at the Rhode Island School of Design, expected 2027. In Fall 2025 he studied at the Istituto Lorenzo de' Medici in Florence, where coursework in painting conservation deepened his engagement with historical materials, surface structure, and the long life of paint.

His work moves between the representational and the abstract — shaped by an early engagement with the Dutch and Flemish masters and a growing pull toward surface, material, and chance. He works in oil and acrylic, on canvas and increasingly on non-traditional grounds where the substrate becomes part of the image.

Since 2024 he has served as a Teaching Assistant in RISD's Design Foundations department, supporting first-year students through studio critique, material exploration, and visual problem-solving.