Andoe first realized that painting could be his career when he was enrolled in community college studying agricultural business.

He was taking an elective class in art history when he learned about artists such as Robert Smithson and Dennis Oppenheim.

They have been described as "lean" and "roughly poetic" by art writer Deborah Solomon, who wrote in 2019 that Andoe was "an important forerunner of the photo-based realism that has become the default style among younger artists today.

Andoe had earlier authored a comic-book-sized group of stories about his life that he distributed to friends and family.

[3][4] Janet Maslin from the New York Times reviewed his memoir, writing, "[the subtitle] suggests that Andoe is eager to depict himself as a raw and reckless sort ... he is ardent but infantile, and his delivery is so deadpan that we’re never sure whether he’s self-critical or clueless.