Andy Hehnlin

Andy Hehnlin moved to Alaska over 30 years ago to explore and find new opportunities in this Last Frontier. In that time he has lived in a variety of towns including Fairbanks, Girdwood, Nome (in the summers), Haines, and now Big Lake.

Andy has worked as a general contractor and a gold miner. He has prospected in the golden rivers of Girdwood, the golden beaches of Nome, and the golden hills of the Wrangles.

Andy began painting professionally in 1995. He creates all of his art using egg-tempera. Popular in Europe, this realistic method was developed during the renaissance and was used by Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, and many others. Today there are less than 200 professional egg-tempera artists in the world; most of those are in Europe. Egg-tempera uses egg yolk mixed with distilled water and pigments to create a unique surface with beautiful optical properties.

Andy takes time from his busy summers of gold mining to observe the wondrous beauty of Alaska, storing those scenes in his memory and with a photograph. During the long winter months, when the ground is too frozen to mine, Andy takes out those photographs and relives the experiences into paintings.