Randal Gordy Lee
My artworks may begin in many ways—with a line, a shape, a colour, a memory, a situation, a feeling. But they all end the same way. They become a story.
I’ve always been intrigued by people, and by their stories. The human figure is a constant in my artwork—not as static portraits, but engaged in complex situations or settings. Sometimes they become an individual story or artwork, or sometimes they emerge as a series of paintings, much like chapters in a book. I find inspiration in everyday dramas and dilemmas ~ in the provocative, the uncomfortable, and the disturbing, but also in the intimate, joyful and redemptive.
The settings of my work may be instantly recognizable, but they also contain elements of mystery and theatre. I prefer the freedom of abstraction, using a language of pattern, geometry and symbols that I’ve developed over many years of pen and ink drawing and painting in oils.
My stories in paint, or “narrative abstractions”, are personal and autobiographical, yet they are also inspired by the lives of others I’ve known or encountered. Commissions often involve sharing deeply meaningful elements of a person’s life story, and seeing it rendered into my vision of it. It is a complex, fascinating process.
“I must create a system, or be enslaved by another man’s. I will not reason or compare: my business is to create.””
photography by Elliott Lee
