PRESS RELEASE
Randy Twaddle: New Drawings
Jan 12 – Mar 16, 2013
Holly Johnson Gallery is pleased to announce the opening of Randy Twaddle: New Drawings, an exhibition of new work on paper by the celebrated Texas artist. An opening reception for the artist will be held on Saturday, January 12, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. The exhibition continues through Saturday, March 16, 2013.
Throughout his thirty-year career Randy Twaddle has been interested in the physical structures associated with industry and technology, especially those that are either maligned as eyesores or taken for granted because of their ubiquity in the landscape. Pole-mounted electrical transformers and their distribution lines in particular have been a continuing source of inspiration for Twaddle, and they are the basis for the work in this exhibition.
Twaddle describes his interest in the distribution lines: “I love to drive down Houston streets - especially at dawn or dusk - when the light magically turns these silhouetted utilitarian wires and cables into calligraphic drawings or something akin to alternative music scores. I’m constantly awed by their unintentional beauty and lyricism.”
While Twaddle’s imagery may be familiar, his choice of media is not. Eschewing charcoal, a medium in which he has worked for over twenty-five years, Twaddle’s new drawings are done in black drawing ink and coffee, which he “steers” on the paper to create layered grounds for the silhouetted distribution lines. While the ink is controlled and applied by careful brushwork, the ground created by the coffee owes much to chance. This pairing of chance and control creates a tension that is also present in the power lines themselves.
Randy Twaddle was born in Elmo, Missouri and received a Bachelor of Fine Art degree from Northwest Missouri State University in 1980. Upon graduation, he moved to Dallas and lived there for nine years. In 1989 he moved to Houston, subsequently completing his Master of Fine Art degree at the University of Houston in 1996.
Since the early 1980’s his work has been exhibited throughout Texas, as well as in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and New York. He has been the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship, a Cultural Arts Council of Houston Harris County Artist Award, an Award in the Visual Arts, and an Arch and Anne Giles Kimbrough Award from the Dallas Museum of Art.