Tracey Morgan Gallery is pleased to present Black & White, an exhibition of new work by artist Randy Shull. This is Shull’s third solo exhibition with the gallery. An opening reception for the Artist is scheduled for Friday, August 9 from 6-8PM.

Shull has the unique ability to evoke both gravity and weightlessness within a single artwork, pouring thick layers of paint around the loose weave of handmade hammocks, a material that he has been incorporating in his work for several years. Hammocks are core to life in the Yucatán peninsula of Mexico where Shull has lived part-time for the past 18 years, and where he maintains a studio in the historic center of Mérida. If art and hammocks are the vehicles of dreams, Shull’s work carves a path into the subconscious. 

As objects, hammocks are extremely strong and malleable, with a rich cultural history. Shull at once honors this craft and lineage while treating it irreverently, exploring the boundaries of what a painting can be with tireless experimentation. In these heavily textured almost muscular works, Shull subverts the very notion of a painting, reversing the usual roll of canvas and paint. Using paint as a binder to hold the hammocks together, he creates a radical new material that is culled from the histories of art and craft while decidedly pointing towards their futures. 

The natural sagging and draping that occurs in these works lends a tapestry-like aesthetic, and upon looking we become suddenly viscerally aware of the weight of our bodies. Simultaneously, Shull’s use of vibrant colors, earth tones, and rough surfaces and edges allows us to revel in the simple pleasures of materiality and light.

The title of the exhibition is in part a nod toward contemporary life in the polarized U.S. and is in line with Shull’s interest in pairs, contrasts, and the spaces between; many of the works on view are subtly divided into two panels.

In addition to the paintings, the exhibition includes sculptural elements and a video piece that illustrate Shull’s investigation, in the extreme, of the capacity and capability of the hammock.

Randy Shull lives and works in Asheville, NC and Mérida, Mexico. He received his BFA in Furniture Design from Rochester Institute of Technology, NY in 1986. He is the recipient of a North Carolina Arts Council Fellowship and a NEA Southern Arts Federation grant. He has exhibited both nationally and internationally and his work is included in the collections of The Brooklyn Museum, NY; The High Museum of Art, GA; The Renwick Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C.; The Mint Museum of Craft + Design, NC; Racine Museum of Art, WI; The Gregg Museum of Art & Design, NC; Museum of Art and Design, NY, Black Mountain College Museum, NC; The Asheville Art Museum, NC; The Ogden Museum of Southern Art, LA; The Mobile Museum of Art, AL, and numerous corporate collections including Fidelity, Wells Fargo, Piedmont Natural Gas, Duke Hospital, and Wortham Center for the Performing Arts, among others.