Jeff Bailey Gallery
625 West 27th Street, 212-989-0156
Chelsea
February 14 - March 17, 2007
Reception: Friday, February 16, 6 - 8 PM
Web Site
In a series of colored pencil drawings, Randall has created strange flowers and plants hybridized with human and animal traits.
Abundantly detailed and saturated with color, each flower and plant initially appears to be an incredibly precise botanical or naturalia drawing. Yet they reveal themselves to be bizarre fetish objects, incorporating human elements like skin, hair and tongues. Inspired by cloning, genetically modified food and plants, plastic surgery and other forms of unnatural intervention, these humanoid hybrids are depicted as decoys. They entice other species from their normal ecosystem, ultimately ensnaring birds, butterflies and other insects. The Decoys hint at the perils of human meddling with the natural world.
In Decoy #4, raw meat becomes part of a parrot tulip’s petals. Drawn fingerprints ostensibly allude to someone reaching out and touching the drawing, leaving their marks behind. Other trompe l’oiel effects, like paper punctures, thrust the decoys into our space, and implicate the viewer. Beautiful and grotesque, the various Decoys explore what is natural or synthetic, and what is real or surreal.
The Lures are drawings of mouths and tongues in rapid motion, suggesting speech and beckoning the viewer.