Andrea McKenna is an interdisciplinary artist focusing on painting and video making. After graduating from The School of Visual Arts, she briefly pursued her degree in Illustration, then followed a path in set design, interning at Drew University’s  Shakespeare Theater of New Jersey and Fordham College at Lincoln Center. After realizing this was not her dream, she went back to painting. McKenna soon started exhibiting around the tri-state area.

The evolution of her work brought her to create large-scale installations, incorporating found objects and using nontraditional materials in her practice. Her work became a more extensive idea when she discovered her love for video making. Andrea's painted figures are rooted in the spiritual realm, between death and the afterlife. Video-making adds additional layers to these concepts.

 

Work-life led Andrea to become an interior Faux Finisher. After moving to Jersey City in 1999, she formed her own business, Videre Decorative Arts, which grew a client list spanning most of New Jersey. From March 2014 to September 2017, she co-founded and operated The Raven Gallery and Boutique in downtown Jersey City with her best friend, Javier Rodriguez. This gave the local community a place to show and sell their work and connect with their peers. Additionally, Andrea's involvement as a volunteer for Jersey City’s performing and visual arts Non-Profit, Art House Productions, brought her back into the world of set design, where she worked on several productions and became the lead designer for their largest fundraising gala, Snow Ball. In 2018, she was asked to curate for Art House's gallery and now serves as the Gallery Director. 

Andrea resides in Fort Lee, New Jersey, with her husband and two rescue cats.