with provocative sexual themes. A seminal literary trope of the Surrealist movement, Lautremont's image of "the chance meeting on a dissection table of a sewing machine and an umbrella," echoes throughout Randolph's explorations of medical operations and experiments. The representation of the all-too-weak human flesh at the mercy of strange machines and methodologies is an extension of Randolph's concerns with how nature interfaces with the rapidly developing technologies of the information age. And she readily acknowledges her love of Rene Magritte, an artist whose Surrealist depictions include not only a timid bowler-hatted man but also overtly sexual signs and symbols; Randolph admires his work as "about ideas." 1

When Andre Breton's Surrealist tenets alighted in Mexico, they coalesced with an already powerful native sensibility captivated by magic and visionary states. Randolph's art certainly must deal with the shadow of Frida Kahlo, but Randolph had firmly established her themes and techniques independently of Kahlo's direct influence: until 1978 she was not even aware of Kahlo's work. When she first experienced a Kahlo painting, Randolph says she felt as if she had "been knocked across the room;" Certainly, stylistic and thematic concerns resonate between the two artists.

Beyond the visual arts, one of Randolph's strengths as an

imagist is a serious and diverse engagement with numerous other disciplines (a complicated topic that can only be noted in the present text). Well-versed in psychology, sociology, and history, especially feminist studies, she creates paintings that are unique clearinghouses for the juxtaposition of intellectual themes and explorations in which the highs of aesthetic theory and lows of popular culture easily coexist. Randolph, both an avid reader and cineast, has acknowledged a diverse range of inspirations from other art forms: literature ranging from author Edgar Allan Poe to science fiction writers like Octavia Butler ("Dawn") and John Varley ("Press Enter"); and films from directors George Romero ("Night of the Living Dead") to Ridley Scott ("Blade Runner").

Within painterly traditions, Randolph cites her fascination with the tenets of Renaissance painting, works by such artists as FraAngelico and Sandro Botticelli. An especially redolent technique of the Renaissance is the treatment of drapery (see fig. 5). The unveiling light and enclosing shadow of the fabric forms became a metaphorical mode that enabled Renaissance artists to introduce sensual concerns into their work even as they depicted religious subject matter. Randolph has extended this metaphor in numerous paintings where flowing drapery, clothing, fabric, or bed linen have taken on overtly labial forms. This fascination with enfolding and unfolding at its most basic evokes both the penetration of sexual intercourse and the dilation of birthing. The crease and flow of fabric, which convey these associations, also indirectly imply the moment of genesis, the emerging from womb into the wonderment of experience.

Thus, Randolph's paintings often deal by extension with the theme of dawning human awareness. In one of her most remarkable self-portraits "Me Waxing," 1985 (fig. 5) Randolph's face emerges into a lushly rendered natural landscape from the molting shells of a cicada, a process that signals the ecological origins of human responses. In
"Alone in the Wetlands of Desire," 1993, a woman lies on