SV Randall is one of ArtConnect’s Artists to Watch '22

SV Randall is an artist working with sculpture, installation, painting, and performance to address the various ways in which objects mutate in nature and function across time. Time suggests a pattern, it also collapses spaces and welds realities. Randall’s multidisciplinary projects examine entangled connections; bringing together quotidian objects, symbolic materials, and historical research. Throughout his practice, he explores how we situate ourselves in the world, while highlighting larger issues of social visibility, class structure, technological obsolesce, and spatial politics.

SV Randall received his MFA in Sculpture + Extended Media from VCU and his BFA from Alfred University. He is an Assistant Professor of Visual Performing Arts at the University of Texas at Dallas. Currently, he is blurring objects between real and representational.

ArtConnect asked the winning artists to share with us a glimpse into their creative life to get a sense of their personal inspiration and artistic process.

How did you get started as an artist?

I’ve always loved making things and grew up in a DIY environment. My father had a strong and consistent hobby in woodworking, so from an early age I learned the use and value of tools. Some of my earliest memories are of playing with scraps of wood that he had cut. As I grew older, I became immersed within drawing and painting and decided that I wanted to pursue the arts in college. I received my BFA from Alfred University in upstate NY, where I originally set out to study painting. Alfred is an incredibly vibrant interdisciplinary program, and while there, I expanded my studies into printmaking, ceramics, photography, video, sculpture, and even sound. After obtaining my BFA, I went on to receive my MFA in Sculpture + Extended Media a few years later from Virginia Commonwealth University.

How would you describe your artistic approach?

I’m not certain there is all that much consistency in my process. Some works come to fruition through ideas that seem to instantly crystalize, while others congeal slowly, meandering in the back of my mind for months or years. Each project stems from a different point of research and compels me to frequently shift and adjust my creative approach. I continually learn new processes, materials, and methods. Although it never feels easy, I think this is one of the most exciting factors for me – when divergent materials, processes, and concepts begin to feed into one another. I discover my work surrounding the subjects of hermeneutics, semiotics, economics, poetics, debris, and more. I’m always asking questions.

And how about what inspires you?

Usually the mundane. We all absorb and synthesize our surroundings and experiences through different lenses. In many ways my work is an extension and materialization of this process. Observation and extraction. A word, a noise, a structure may transition between abstract and concrete, past and future, large to minuscule in the moments I take to look. And as my work may attest, I am always drawn to the residue leftover from an action or activity.

What are the biggest challenges you’ve faced as an artist?

As a sculptor working with objects and materials, my biggest challenges are logistical in nature, namely storage, transportation, and fabrication. My path toward making art professionally has been a circuitous journey. I’ve worked as an educator, art handler, and preparator for a number of museums and galleries in NY. After receiving my MFA, I prioritized my creative practice above everything else. This choice has led me down some very challenging and rewarding paths. But in exchange for those uncertainties, I was able to travel for fellowships, residencies, and exhibitions which offered me time and space for experimentation, reflection, and creative output. I’ve been fortunate to have supportive teachers, mentors, and friends who have encouraged me over the years.

Describe a typical day in the studio/wherever you make your work.

A day in my studio has ebbs and flows. It is shared between administrative work, applications, research, writing, and making. The days I feel most productive are the ones where I’m actively engaged with materializing a project. My mornings are my most cherished studio time. At this point of the day I’m at my sharpest and can make decisions with the greatest certainty. Most days are pretty regimented: breakfast, studio by seven, planning and working, lunch at noon, more working, coffee, more working, coffee again, home for dinner around six, computer work in the evenings. The days I’m not in the studio, I’m out in the world uncovering ideas and potential materials for my work.

Is there a medium, a process, or a technique that you haven't used in your work yet but would like to try out?

Yes! Too many specifics to list here, but I am intrigued with advancements in the material sciences and am always speculating ways to incorporate these developments into my practice. A few examples being: carbon nanotube forests, elasto-magnetic materials, and aerogel.

What are you currently working on? Or an upcoming project you want to mention?

My partner Laura Neal and I were in an artist residency at the Oak Spring Garden Foundation last summer. Laura is a poet. While there we started experimenting with how our practices could overlap and so we started a collaborative called CALCIUM, which combines visual art with poetics. The manipulation of matter within space is not all that dissimilar from what she does with language. Within both of our practices we explore frictions, textures, gravities, speeds, and spaces between entities.

We have an upcoming exhibition at Arts Fort Worth in TX, which opens this September. We are currently in the middle stages of working toward the exhibition, and we envision that the show will include large digitally collaged vinyl tapestries, sculptures, projected videos, wall text, and a sound track.

How does it feel to be selected as an ArtConnect Artist to Watch?

It is such an honor to be selected as an ArtConnect Artist to Watch! Thank you!

Anything else you want to add?

My next solo exhibition will be opening in January 2023 at the Meadows Museum of Art in Louisiana.

See more of SV Randall’s work

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