Departmental Philosophy
Artist In Residence
Current Student Work

 

Randy Bolton
Artist in Residence Randy Bolton

Randy Bolton was appointed Artist-in-Residence and Head of the Print Media Department in 2002. Born in Dallas, Texas, in 1956, Bolton received a B.F.A. from the University of North Texas in 1978 and an M.F.A. from the Ohio State University in 1982. Bolton has taught in many visiting artist positions across the country, including four years at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. From 1989-2002 Bolton was a Professor of Art and Printmaking Area Coordinator at the University of Delaware, a position he maintained until his arrival at Cranbrook.

Bolton’s work has been widely exhibited in one-person, invitational, and juried shows since 1982. Recent one-person exhibitions include “Twice-Told Tales” at the Cranbrook Art Museum in Michigan; "Things are Rarely What They Seem" and “Chase, Tumble, Slide” at Schmidt/Dean Gallery in Philadelphia; "Books of Nonsense" at Evergreen House in Baltimore, Maryland; and “Two Sides to Every Story” at Littlejohn Contemporary in New York. Recent group exhibitions include: “Better Than New: Randy Bolton and Randy Reiger” at Gray Matters Gallery in Dallas; “Golden Daze: Randy Bolton and John Schulz” at Street Level Gallery in Highwood, Illinois; "New Prints 2004/Spring" at the International Print Center in New York City; "The Outlaw Printmaking Show," Big Cat Gallery in New York City; "Popular, Pop & Post-Pop: Color Screenprints, 1930s to Now" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art; "Look Out" at Revolution Gallery in Ferndale, Michigan; “Digital: Printmaking Now” at the Brooklyn Museum of Art; "Sculptural Prints" and “Digital Press: Artists Exploring New Technologies” at the Print Center in Philadelphia; and “Sight/Insight” at the New York Public Library. Bolton has completed artist residencies at the Evergreen House in Baltimore, the MacDowell Art Colony in New Hampshire, Yaddo in New York and the Camargo Foundation in Cassis, France. Bolton’s prints are in many corporate and museum collections including The Philadelphia Museum of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the New York Public Library. Bolton received a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship in 2000, an Art Matters Fellowship (New York City) in 1996, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in 1989.

 


Yours, Our Land, Mine
2004
3-panel digital print on canvas, tree stumps with carved and wood-burned
images
each panel is 102” x 102”

 

 

Bolton’s work is characterized by an exploration of images that seem familiar and comforting on first glance, but become strange and disturbing on further consideration. His prints borrow from and adapt the nostalgia-evolving illustrations of early children’s books and science texts. In their original contexts these pictures served as visual tools to help educate young minds about acceptable morals and beliefs. In his work, however, Bolton has reclaimed these illustrations with a more subversive intent. By altering and recombining fragments of these illustrations, new meanings are suggested in which an undercurrent of uncertainty or apprehension undermines the initial flash of familiarity and comfort. Images originally intended to reflect childhood security and innocence become ironic metaphors of a chaotic world that is threatened by forces beyond our true comprehension and control. Bolton’s work is about the power these illustrations have in shaping our view of the world as children, followed by the disillusionment that occurs when these images fail us as adults. Despite the seemingly amusing or flippant quality of the images he employs, there is an element of concern in Bolton’s work and a vague feeling that the valuable things in life are in jeopardy.

Selected Bibliography

 

RB 2
Thin Ice
2004
2-panel digital print on canvas
each panel is 88” x 99”

 

 

RB3
Always Stay the Course
2004
digital print on canvas
138” x 168”

 

RB 4
Not Tonight, Honey
2004
digital print on canvas
154” x 168”