Artist Statement

Lynn Randolph

Magic Coast

Try to love this beautiful country in which we live;
It is innocent of the horrors that take place in it.
For my part I try to love the sky
--Simone Weil

In this time of churning technological, social and political change, I have taken spiritual refuge in the Texas coast, in places where the sky meets the land and sea.

Six years ago I began painting the coast from the perspective of loss and absence, indeed, even inventing spirits in the form of floating, transparent objects to console me. In the last two years I have begin to re-populate my paintings, first with quiet shorebirds at twilight, and recently with the human figure. Unlike the figures in my earlier paintings, these figures do not stand out against the natural environment, but are enfolded in clouds, land, water, and light.

The spirits in these recent paintings are intermediaries between the natural world and the metaphysical world. Usually appearing only momentarily, they are the sights that make me catch my breath. Their presence is embodied in the light that illuminates the sky and water everywhere on the coast. They are swimming and soaring in the rays of a sunset over the Indianola marsh or floating in a silvery cove in Matagorda Bay. They glory in a Tiepolo sky and form fish-shaped clouds silhouetted by moonlight.

I’ve wanted these marsh paintings—with their glowing moons and setting suns and illuminated clouds—to capture those magical moments when nature itself seems to coincide with art. Most of them are small and painted on wood. I use multiple layers of thin oil paint to slowly build a luminous quality. The shadow-box frames lined with black velvet allow the paintings to float in a deep void.

Painting these pictures has taught me that the experience of being in nature can never be fully described by art. But if I can evoke the spirit of the experience, including the sheer pleasure and its wild elements, then the magic coast has put me in my place—finite and scared.