francie randolph
The best solutions are found
by paring things down to their essence.
francie@wn.net
email the artist for more information
previous series: 2005-1992
A representative image is displayed for each series going back to
1992. The Artist's Statement accompanying each series is found to
the left of the artwork. To inquire about available artwork or
commissioning similar work, please contact the artist.
Artist’s Statements: 2005-1992
Sea Reflection, 2004/05
The world is large, but in us it is as deep as the sea.
-R.M. Rilke
This undersea work is about reflection and metamorphosis. It is about looking into the depths, specifically deep into the sea. It’s about losing a grounding gravitational hold, floating suspended in time, and allowing imagination and the unconscious to inform what I see. Reflection and chiaroscuro reveal new discoveries within these depths.
I am creating new life forms from ordinary garden pants. A common burr becomes a crawling anemone, a thistle transforms into a coral reef. Photographing, cropping, duplicating, mirroring and layering produce an endless variety of new organisms. I then combine the photography with traditional painting and glazing techniques. All the work is technologically altered, nature manipulated and viewed through a liquid lens. Although it is water which sustains life on the most basic level, its depths are also the most enigmatic, home to both wondrous new life forms and to monstrous unknown danger. It is these depths, within the ocean, our world around us, and within ourselves, that I explore.
Intimate Immensity: Pregnancy, 2003
I held a small ocean within me, cradling the child. Water sustained us—enveloping my babe, quenching my thirst, overflowing the earth.
This series of pregnant nudes celebrates largeness, roundness, fullness: the cycle of life. The photographs are about being big, and seeing the beauty in getting bigger. They are about a very intimate immensity. The images capture unique and fleeting moments of a woman’s life when she houses another within, sustaining with her own physical greatness of being.
New Geographies, 2002
Space, outside ourselves, invades and ravishes things: If you want to achieve the existence of a tree, invest it with inner space, this space that has its being in you.
-Rainer Maria Rilke, Poème, 1924
This work is a search for new perception: a continued attempt to see the presence of perfectly familiar subjects in a new way. In spite of a disturbed world, in spite of daily distractions, the magnified focus offers a new geography and fresh impact. I see what I hadn’t noticed before, what I had taken for granted looks new again, I recognize similarities and differences not previously acknowledged. In the stillness of discovering detail, a quiet calm emerges. This concentration can intensify the viewing, the senses. The act of creating these images is meditative yet offers as much surprise as life itself. Through this close and intimate examination of the world the patterns which connect us appear. The continued discovery of new ways of seeing draws together two worlds: the immense external world and the intimate world that exists within.
The Moment of Unraveling, 2001
These images are photographs I have taken of unique moments of unfurling, a plant poised for life and its potential. Through technological manipulation and reconfiguration the work explores the relationship of science and nature as well as the human urge to “improve” nature.
In the Moment of Unraveling exposes the fern: a primitive life form whose genetic make-up is naturally “fractal” - the mathematical term for a part which contains within it the structure of the whole. One leaf of a frond mimics the structure of the complete frond; one branch of a leaf mimics the structure of the leaf itself, etc. My technique parallels this challenge to the concept of wholeness. I have scanned photographs into the computer and altered them, sometimes slightly and other times more so. By manipulating the plants in the computer, altering scale, cloning parts, and deleting sections, I change the make-up of what naturally existed. What is real? What is technologically altered? I explore the concept of altering the world around us, the marriage of new and old, culture and nature.
Body Matrix, 2000
matrix, n., pl. matrices. 1. that which gives origin or form to a thing, or which serves to enclose it. 2. Anat. a formative part. 3. Biol. the intercellular substance of a tissue. 4. Math. the rectangular arrangement into rows and columns of the elements of a set. 5. Archaic. the womb. [< latin: mater, mother]
The Body Matrix series focuses on various meanings of the word matrix. The individual “cells” of the grid join together to form large images of pregnant nudes. By breaking the photograph apart, printing each piece separately and then reconfiguring them on a painted panel, and by cropping tightly on nearly abstracted sections of the body, I investigate the relationship of a part to the whole.
Advances in reproductive technologies, both in terms of reproducing (printing) an image and of reproducing (cloning) a biological organism, play into my work. The photography, computer work and printing methods explore new developments in digital technologies. I then combine my photos with traditional painting materials —canvas, graphite, paint—to explore how the high-tech can be coupled with traditional modes of art-making. In addition to my technique, my chosen subject matter is an inquiry into perceived opposites.
Dehiscence, 1999
The painter’s eye attends to birth and death
Together, seeing a single energy
Momently manifest in every form,
As in the tree the growing of the tree
Exploding from the seed not more nor less
Than from the void condensing down and in
Summoning sun and rain.
-Howard Nemerov
The Dehiscence Series focuses on botanical form and cycles of growth. Life, death, and regeneration are distilled in these forms, uncomplicated by tradition, fear, and human ego. Desiccation in the plant world yields an opening of seed pods, a giving forth of fruit for future generations. The raw beauty of the entire range of plant life from germination to decay, the infinite variety of forms within a preordained genetic pattern of growth, and the fundamental desire for maximum development, intrigue me. My work is a visual exploration into this life cycle, the continuum from birth to death to birth.
Natural Metaphors, 1998
The depth of life is entirely revealed in the spectacle, however ordinary, that we have before our eyes, and which becomes the symbol of it.
-Baudelaire, Journaux Intimes
The images exhibited are printed on watercolor paper using a photographic process called cyanotype; some are tea-toned and glazed. The natural grace of the botanical forms is juxtaposed with the process; computer generated overlays, not negatives, lie upon chemicals and emulsions to achieve a final print. By using tactile, organic materials I try to draw in my audience, provoking visceral reactions: we see. Then I hope to establish distance by revealing high-tech procedures: we know. By combining traditional, organic materials with high-tech computer work I explore the dichotomies of technique as well as of youth and aging.
Archetypal structure is a common link among all organisms; similarities exist in identical stages of life throughout different species. In many organisms we can see nearing the end of life’s cycle as a sublime process. Yet a person, distinguished from other organisms by emotional ability, comprehends an end to an individual cycle. Can we see the beauty in human aging if our knowledge of tradition, fear, and human ego cloud our vision? The mystery, for me, is in the question: What are the differences in seeing and knowing?
Reproductive Technologies, 1996/97
There are no opposites: only from logic do we derive the concept of opposites - and falsely transfer it to things.
-Nietzsche
Culture and nature historically have been placed in a dualistic construct. Yet technology, developed by culture, has recently taken great strides into the realm of biological reproduction. Cloning, defined by "a group of organisms derived from a single individual by various types of asexual reproduction", has just become possible for more complex organisms. Culture has undeniably entered the domain of nature.
The idea of this process makes many uncomfortable, ill at ease. Much of the discomfort likely stems from the blurring of heretofore fairly distinct boundaries. In addition to blurring the distinction between culture and nature, cloning redefines the biological purpose of female and male. "Asexual reproduction" negates the need for coupling, further breaking down cultural categorizations of the sexes. The realms of male and of female become less distinct and share more and more ground each day. We are moving into new territory that defies facile categorization.
The interplay of such dual relationships has played a large part in my work for the past six years. I've done a series on abortion rights, and the Eureka Series which combined women's bodies and vacuum cleaners. I'm now working with botanical elements and the technological reproductions of these forms. Plants are a part of nature, botany, or the study of plants, a part of culture. Technology, namely the use of the computer, has been culturally derived; the reproduction of natural organisms has historically been a part of nature.
My artwork couples traditional drawing and painting techniques with new computer imaging and printing technology. The art form, as well as the topic addressed, explore intersections of dualities. Below the facile oppositional relationships of traditional painting/high-tech computer work, nature/culture, and woman/man, there exist intricate, delicate, and complex links. My work embodies a fascination for these shared places, common ground which, when explored, can engender symbiosis and growth.
Eureka: Stereotypes Visualized through Women and Vacuums, 1994/95
The Eureka Series addresses traditional societal stereotypes by focusing on both the vacuum and women’s bodies. By pushing these images beyond their standard “housework” association, I try to draw the viewer’s attention to ideas about the woman behind the vacuum. What is the role of a woman as a beauty object and what is her role as a housewife? Can the two identities coexist? Does society relax its rigid standards of beauty for the woman in the home? Are “societal roles” socially and morally acceptable? Are these womens’ voices, their thoughts and minds, heard and valued?
My hope is that the pictorial, aesthetic elements of these prints will challenge conventional ideas about women and vacuums and thereby encourage thought. Analogy, the combination of two similar elements, and metaphor, the substitution of one image for another, play a large part in my work, skewing images to create ironic relationships. Through manipulating, interpreting, and juxtaposing familiar icons I try to reach a responsive chord in the viewer by transcending the obvious.
The seven pieces in the series are Giclée prints and utilize the latest computer printing technology. The idea that the art form, as well as the topic addressed, breaks with tradition is a seductive one to me. Miles Unger in Art New England (2/94) states, “whether we embrace the new technologies wholeheartedly or bemoan their assault on traditional forms and practices, it is clear that in a world that is increasingly networked and digitized, art cannot simply cling to the past.” It is my belief that a distinct parallel can be drawn for the traditional role of women in American society.
Visions of Choice & Alienable Wrongs, 1992/93
For the past year I have concentrated my personal work on creating designs to clearly and powerfully illustrate gender issues. As a woman I am disturbed by much of our country's lack of respect for the female mind and body. As a visual artist I feel I best communicate my ideas visually. I have attempted to create images which will begin a thought process, an analysis of personal belief.
The poster series, first shown prior to the 1992 elections, examines the frightening prospect of government legislation, of losing a woman's fundamental right to determine what happens within her. Individually each poster works to engage its viewer. Together they rigorously question a woman's loss of control over her own body. I have tried to create a series which will reverberate within one's head, demanding an analysis of the issues involved in Choice.
The monoprints branch out into a wider range of gender issues, commenting on inequalities and positive steps toward change. Women and religion, the growth from the "traditional" role of women in the home, government and women's bodies, and America's promise of freedom are questioned. The idea of working together toward change, for both men and women alike, is suggested.
I have created these images to encourage dialogue, thereby benefiting both women and men. Conversation between the sexes, undergraduates and graduates, students and faculty, Harvard and the outside community will aid in increasing awareness of gender discrepancies. Such dialogue will force a distillation and communication of one's personal beliefs, a synthesis of thought. This process will encourage individuals to confront the issues on a personal rather than an institutional level, and, if successful, will be one small step toward increased communication and understanding of the issues faced by a woman in America today.
