FAST FORWARD: 20 YEARS OF WHITE ROOMS
WHITE COLUMNS, NEW YORK
Exhibition Catalog
By Lauren Ross
Randy Wray's work is a study in deliberate medium non-specificity. Although he has long produced both paintings and sculpture, in the early part of his career he chose to exhibit only the former. In his White Room, Wray showed fifty paintings: forty-eight small canvases arranged in a grid, and two dramatically large panels. The small paintings were a highly eclectic mix of abstraction and representation, drawing on such diverse source material and subject matter as thrift store paintings, tabloid headlines, and childhood photographs. By building up the surfaces using a variety of materials, Wray achieved a sculptural quality in his canvases. Lamaze Method II is one such early painting, composed with synthetic hair, cigarette butts, and macaroni.
The sculptures Wray had been making concurrently were also exercises in inspired mixing, blending ceramic with papier-mâché, string, seashells, toothpicks, and other assorted materials. Although he produced them diligently in a stream-of-consciousness fashion, they remained private inventions, restricted to the studio. In 1996, Wray had a revelation: his own sculpture could serve as a personal and unique vocabulary of images at his ready disposal. Photographs of the sculptures were manipulated with digital technology to create new images for use in both paintings and works on paper. It was not until a couple of years ago that Wray decided to reveal his source material by exhibiting the sculptures themselves. Currently, his preferred method is to show both, either individually or together. No longer separate enterprises, painting and sculpture continually echo and reflect one another with encrusted surfaces, vivid and pulsating colors, and a surprising mix of organic and unnatural materials.
November 1-December 7, 2003