randee silv ransilv@hotmail.com 212 252 -6972
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With this most recent group of paintings, Silv brings our attention back to the very origins of painting while exposing the roots of our visual culture. These pieces are distinct in that they consider the process of image-making in a way that is both current and extraordinarily old.

In “The Mind in the Cave: Consciousness and the Origins of Art,” David Lewis-Williams compares the controversial abstract marks in Upper Paleolithic cave paintings with entoptic forms that have been documented during altered states of consciousness.  These zig-zags, dots, meandering lines and nested curves are what we all see on the edge of our vision.
 
It is within these most primordial moments, before these flickering forms congeal into recognizable imagery, that Silv finds parallels with her own work. She asks us, in viewing these paintings, to consider whether the concept of art may have been initially triggered by abstract rather than iconic imagery. And if we acknowledge this, these endangered marks could widen our dialogue with the transitional potentiality of abstract gesture.

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randee silv with m'allim najib soudani,

randee silv with m'allim najib soudani, brothers and crew.

 
Through her friendship with the Gnawi musician, M'allim Najib Soudani, in Essaouira, Morocco, Randee Silv became absorbed with Gnawa music and their trance rituals. She closely observed the quality of concentration and the kinetic looseness of the dancers and musicians during the night ritual, the Lila, which fired the active perceiving/conceiving of the strokes in a new way that can be seen in her Gnawa series and subsequent work.

 

SELECTED GROUP & SOLO EXHIBITIONS

 

Caves + Wall, 3rd Stone Gallery Space, solo exhibition, Newport, R.I., 2009
HangNight, Heath Gallery, New York, N.Y., 2009
endangered gestures, solo exhibition, M55 Art, Long Island City, N.Y. 2009
IAO Projects, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2009
Lyndsay McCandless Contemporary, Jackson, Wyoming, 2009
reload: M55 Art in L.I.C., M55 Art, Long Island City, N.Y. 2008
M55 Artists, M55 Art, Long Island City, N.Y. 2008
IAO Projects, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2008
Paper, Paint, Clay, Rhonda Schaller Gallery, New York, NY, 2008
Lyndsay McCandless Contemporary, Jackson, Wyoming, 2008
Fragments of a Larger Idea, Rhonda Schaller Gallery, New York, NY, 2007
Crossroads, Rhonda Schaller Gallery, New York, NY, 2007
Lyndsay McCandless Contemporary, Jackson, Wyoming, 2007
Abstract: Alive!, Gallery 380, Brooklyn, NY,2007
Nondesript, 111 Minna Gallery, San Francisco, California, 2007
 Jackson Street Gallery, Jackson, Wyoming, 2006
46th Chromosome, Jackson Street Gallery, Jackson, Wyoming, 2006
Peace, Sideshow Gallery, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 2004
257 Varet Open Studios, East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 2004
257 Varet Open Studios, East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 2003
JumpArtists, JumpArts@Context Gallery, Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 2002
257 Varet Open Studios, East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 2002
5th Stop Open Studios, East Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 2002
Essaouira, Freiria, NYC, solo exhibiton, Jump Arts@Brecht Forum, New York, 2001
Time/Motion/Change, solo exhibition, Galeria Moçambique Kultural, Lisbon, Portugal, 1999
Bird Told Me So, solo exhibition, Galeria Costa do Castelo, Lisbon, Portugal, 1999
New Work, Open Studio, Freiria, Portugal, 1998
New Work, Open Studio, Freiria, Portugal, 1997
New Work, Open Studio, Fonte da Telha, Portugal, 1995
New Work, Open Studio, Fonte da Telha, Portugal, 1994
Face/Body, solo exhibition, Kim Gallery, New York, NY, 1984
Caidoz Gallery, New York, NY, 1983
301 Houston Gallery, New York, NY, 1983
DFC Gallery, solo exhibition, New York, NY, 1979
DFC Gallery ,solo exhibition, New York, NY, 1978
Works Gallery East, Southampton, New York, 1977


GRANTS

Endowment for the Arts/Art in Public Places Grant
Right Bank View, 101/2' X 181/2', Greenville-Spartanburg Airport, South Carolina, 1980

PUBLICATIONS

Art & Life in a Changing New York, Resolve40, 2007
 Crossroads, Rhonda Schaller Studio, June 2007
muhheankuntuk / CD cover, Clean Feed, Lisbon, Portugal, 2007
242 Varet, Erie Art Museum, concert publication, Erie, Pennsylvania, 2006
Lists of Wishes / CD cover, High Road Records, Austin, Texas, 2006
Celebrating Gesture, Abstract Art Online, Artist Profile, Volume VI/Number 7, March 2004
rapt circle / CD Cover, Cadence Jazz Records, 2004
Sudanii / CD cover, deep dish records, Essaouira, Morocco, 1999
which way what / CD cover, deep dish records, Lisbon, Portugal, 1995
Disappeared, poems, Costa da Caparica, Portugal, 1994
Very Burnt Beans, poems, Firesign Press, New York, NY, 1988
Hair of Reason, poems, Firesign Press, New York, NY, 1987
Stroker Magazine, drawings, New York, NY, May Issue, 1983
Right Bank View, Greenville Jetport News, Vol.6 #2. Greenville, South Carolina 1981
On the Wall, The Greenville News, Greenville, South Carolina, October 1980


EDUCATION

Alfred University, studio art, Alfred, NY, 1971-1973
Fashion Institute of Techology, silkscreening / textile design, NYC, 1973
C. W. Post College, fine arts, Brookville, NY, 1974
Trenton State College, B.A. Art Therapy, Trenton, NJ, 1974-1975
Alfred University, clay summer intensive, Alfred, NY, 1972
Instituto Allende, clay & textiles, San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, 1973
University of California, clay & wood firing, Yuba City, California, 1974
Hal Riegger, raku, Grass Valley, California, 1974
Penland School of Art, glassblowing, Penland, North Carolina, 1976

 

 

 
 
 
wall
 
 
 
 
 
walls. essaouira, morocco
...The exploration, the journey, the flight of fancy, the intelligence, the informed visual sensibility - all of this makes this work magnificent. But the thing that makes these pieces wonderful and is the key to their meaning is their uninhibited celebration of gesture. r

...a true abstract painter's sensibility in cutting the forms and colors loose and then following to see where it will take her.

..The crucial thing is the balance between the yin that freedom of expression offers and the yang found in the discipline. The proportions of each aspect vary in Silv's work but neither is ever completely absent.

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