A member of the Dartmouth studio art faculty for 20 years, Randall currently teaches Painting 2 and 3, as well as a senior seminar.
Randall was abroad last Spring term in Italy studying Roman paintings, which she said served as an inspiration for the pieces now exhibited in the Strauss Gallery.
"I began to be interested in wall paintings and knew about these garden paintings from the House of Livia in Prima Porta from the first century B.C., so I wrote a grant and received a writing fellowship to go to Rome to study these paintings," Randall said.
Randall applied several layers of rich, earthy color to each of her works, creating paintings that evoke a sense of nature. Her largest piece on display, a 44"-by-50" oil-on-canvas titled "Livia's Walls 11," is merely a monotone yellow canvas at first glance. Upon further investigation, however, the viewer can see primary layers of pinks, purples and greens peeking through the textured yellow surface. This combination of colors is reminiscent of the changing leaves on a New Hampshire autumn day.
"They're inspired by nature," Randall said of the paintings. "But they're really seeking to investigate elusive states of consciousness so they develop over time."
Randall succeeds in creating pieces that explore and stimulate human consciousness and emotion.
"The surface, the sense of touch, the rhythm, the intensity of light and color and maybe also the fragility within the pieces, make them calm and yet turbulent," Randall said. "There's movement and a sense of change, so often there's an overriding feeling, but there's also its opposite embedded in the work, and the tension between opposites hopefully produces certain excitement, interest and engagement."
The best example of Randall's efforts to balance calm and turbulence is her only painting with blue hues, an oil-on-linen titled "Livia's Walls 14."
While Randall's other paintings have thickly applied warmer colors, like burnt oranges and reds, "Livia's Walls 14" gives the viewer a sense of calm with the piece's ocean-like appearance. Still, examining the painting closely, the viewer finds a few strokes of fiery reds and bright yellows underneath the coated blue paint, lending a hint of drama to the otherwise calm and tranquil scene.
Randall said she hopes viewers notice these intricate details, which give her paintings the substance and depth that make them significant studies of texture, space and color.
"I want them to have an emotional experience with the language of the paint, to open themselves up to their character and personality and the equality of light and color, and a feeling for space," Randall said. "So, somewhat like music, I want the viewer to feel the paintings on a conceptual level, see the underlying structure and appreciate the aesthetic experience."
Randall, who grew up in Minnesota, said that she first became interested in painting as a child after her first visit to art museums in New York City.
"When I visited New York and went to the Museum of Modern Art, I decided that that's what I wanted to try to be," Randall said.
Randall's exhibition runs through May 3.
