Thursday, June 10, 2010

Randall Tiedman

Randall Tiedman is an entirely intuitive artist who starts work on his paintings cold, without plan or reference material. But he seems to follow one of two general approaches. The first is a geometric construction of dark landscapes seemingly carved up, reconstructed and controlled by a cold human presence. There is a miasma to the atmosphere of these places, randomly littered with bridges and canals, landing platforms and pipe-works. They hold the same attraction to me as a good sci-fi disaster novel, combining a stern warning against human hubris and a fascination with decay and ruin. His other approach is more organic exploring the human form instead of the landscape. Here he plies his paint in a manner reminiscent of the fantastic Francis Bacon creating sometimes grotesque but powerful images. My personal preferences lean toward the former but either way there is a clearly a great talent at work here.
But I must say that once again I feel thwarted by the internet. I understand that low resolution images are a necessary way to protect the reproduction rights of artists. But I really think you can go quite bit larger before that becomes a serious problem. And detail shots are always nice. I would love to see these paintings in person. I can only assume that the impact would be far greater.
You can see much more at www.randalltiedman.com
None of the paintings are titled or given sizes. You can click on the images to view them ever so slightly larger.









































































No comments:

Post a Comment