Randi (RJ) began studying art in her early teens through a mail order instruction institute through which she received critique and encouragement. After graduating high school, she entered the University Of New Mexico where she pursued an art degree. However, by a turn of events she needed to change her major and instead earned a science degree in dental hygiene. She worked in the dental hygiene profession for 27 years and retired at the onset of the pandemic. During the past 30 years she has utilized her creative roots by creating elaborate costumes and hats such as seen in the production of “Scrooge”. Randi also devoted a good portion of her time to music: she wrote, co-produced and sang her original songs which resulted in a CD entitled “Tattered Pages”.
Now that she is retired, she focuses her attention on painting and the occasionally silly kid portrait. Being a retired dental hygienist, she loves painting kiddos in the developmental stage of missing teeth. Like Randi’s animal paintings her portraits are often whimsical or contain some form of humor. The passion to blend different media with a touch of glitter adds dramatic effect. It’s no wonder! This theatrical drama buff loves invoking the emotional response in every area of life. Dentistry, drama, music, and art: All of these involve her love for people.
Her experience with cancer is a personal one. Her grandmother, father and stepfather struggled through its ravaging effects, making her acutely aware of importance of a medical facility such as the New Mexico Cancer Center. She hopes to instill the simplicity of severable moments in life. She wants her art to bring a release from the chaos and leave us all with a tangible touch of healing laughter.
Artist Statement
In my whimsical canvas paintings, I combine oil paint, oil pastels, oil pencils and soft pastels. I also use a technique of melting oil pastels for texture or combining multiple layers of oil pencil and pastels to create the illusion of texture. My paintings are finished with a touch of fanciful glitter. A final layer of spray varnish seals and protects each piece of art.
My subject matter includes an array of different animals in light-hearted settings, and I love selecting vibrant happy colors to ignite the senses. Zebras (often called The African horse) are fun and intriguing. Interestingly, a zebra’s stripes and the giraffe’s spots are like our fingerprints. They are individual and visually stunning. I gravitate toward these animals because of the stark contrast of the zebras black & white stripes and the giraffe’s variety of irregular spots. No matter what pose, I find that their patterns accentuate their dramatic musculature.
No matter the choice of subject - I hope to ignite the “I can relate” feeling, and I strive to induce that “staring at you” experience. I write a description for each painting and place them on the backs of each work of art to convey what I was thinking when creating my paintings.
