(Full video overview of entire exhibit)
Of Flowers and Flesh
Opening Reception May 29th, 2021 4pm-6pm
Closing Reception June 26th, 2021 4pm-6pm
Show runs from -
May 29th, 2021 - June 26th, 2021
Artist - Ted Randler
Statement
Patterns Come Together, Patterns Fall Apart
I wanted to teach myself how to paint flowers. I’m not a gardener. My husband and I bought a home where the owners had planted elaborate flower beds on the property. Many of the flowers in these paintings come from my yard or from corporate-maintained gardens found throughout Washington, D.C.’s public venues.
A little universe of chaos and control, a garden’s beauty comes from our attempts to organize patterns from the randomness of nature. It is an impossible endeavor as natural growth will eventually overwhelm all gardens. But the existential joy, the momentary vanity of the last weed being pulled from a tulip bed or spying the first crocus bloom of spring makes it somehow worth the effort.
I like the way sunlight plays on stems and leaves of daylilies creating linear zigzagging patterns, or almost patterns. Spatially, you can lose your sense of perspective and scale in a wonderful way if you ignore the horizon line in favor of simply focusing on the flowers and fauna.
The other kinds of flowers in my paintings come from wallpaper patterns. Again, I’m playing with the idea of how we try to impose order upon nature. I began to incorporate aspects of William Morris’ designs from the 19th-century Arts and Crafts movement as well as 18th-century Rococo motifs as art history references. We recognize the patterns as flower and fauna images, but they have unique flat and graphic details that are completely removed from any natural flower or creature.
As with everything I attempt in art, I always begin with the idea of achieving Pre-Raphaelite exactitude in detail, but then the process of painting or drawing takes precedence. The composition of texture, color, and shape on my easel becomes so much more interesting than merely rendering the image.
Instead of detailing flowers, figures, and patterns, I tend to indicate more than illustrate. I think in terms of reasonable facsimiles of what I want to paint balanced against the discoveries from experimenting with calligraphic mark-making and optical blending of color.
I compose patterns (sunlight and shadows on leaves, the design of wallpaper, the texture of skin) with layers and layers of random brushstrokes. Or sometimes I will do the inverse and play with a pattern of marks that infiltrates the entire figure and ground of the composition, becoming more evident in some passages or dissipating in others. I let paint be paint instead of merely a means towards representing something. In this way, the painting becomes its own unique universe of chaos and control.
I wanted to teach myself how to paint flowers. I’m not a gardener. My husband and I bought a home where the owners had planted elaborate flower beds on the property. Many of the flowers in these paintings come from my yard or from corporate-maintained gardens found throughout Washington, D.C.’s public venues.
A little universe of chaos and control, a garden’s beauty comes from our attempts to organize patterns from the randomness of nature. It is an impossible endeavor as natural growth will eventually overwhelm all gardens. But the existential joy, the momentary vanity of the last weed being pulled from a tulip bed or spying the first crocus bloom of spring makes it somehow worth the effort.
I like the way sunlight plays on stems and leaves of daylilies creating linear zigzagging patterns, or almost patterns. Spatially, you can lose your sense of perspective and scale in a wonderful way if you ignore the horizon line in favor of simply focusing on the flowers and fauna.
The other kinds of flowers in my paintings come from wallpaper patterns. Again, I’m playing with the idea of how we try to impose order upon nature. I began to incorporate aspects of William Morris’ designs from the 19th-century Arts and Crafts movement as well as 18th-century Rococo motifs as art history references. We recognize the patterns as flower and fauna images, but they have unique flat and graphic details that are completely removed from any natural flower or creature.
As with everything I attempt in art, I always begin with the idea of achieving Pre-Raphaelite exactitude in detail, but then the process of painting or drawing takes precedence. The composition of texture, color, and shape on my easel becomes so much more interesting than merely rendering the image.
Instead of detailing flowers, figures, and patterns, I tend to indicate more than illustrate. I think in terms of reasonable facsimiles of what I want to paint balanced against the discoveries from experimenting with calligraphic mark-making and optical blending of color.
I compose patterns (sunlight and shadows on leaves, the design of wallpaper, the texture of skin) with layers and layers of random brushstrokes. Or sometimes I will do the inverse and play with a pattern of marks that infiltrates the entire figure and ground of the composition, becoming more evident in some passages or dissipating in others. I let paint be paint instead of merely a means towards representing something. In this way, the painting becomes its own unique universe of chaos and control.
Biography
Ted Randler (b. 1959, Stamford, Connecticut) spent a large part of his childhood moving with his family to New York, Illinois and Texas before settling in Bowling Green, Virginia. He earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1982 and Masters of Fine Art from Syracuse University in 1985. After graduate school, he lived in New York City for a number years before relocating to Virginia.
Highly influenced by popular culture and mass media — particularly for magazines and television — his early artwork predates the age of the internet. As an early-adopter of desktop publishing, Randler followed a career into graphic design and publishing. His work in commercial multi-media led to video production and later development with web and mobile applications. In 1998, along with his husband David Smitherman, Randler established Palari Publishing LLP, an independent publisher of books, magazines and web applications. The publications Palari launched included URGE, a regional fine arts journal that Randler led as well as contributed art criticism. URGE later evolved into the arts section of Greater Richmond Grid a publication that Palari sold in 2010. Following the sale of the magazine, Randler moved to the Washington D.C. He currently splits his studio time between D.C. and Ashland, Virginia. His paintings have been presented in solo and group shows in the Hamptons, Manhattan, Richmond, and Orlando galleries. His works are included in the Capital One Corporate collection, the Florence Griswold Museum as well as in private collections throughout America. |
Website - randler.gallery/
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