Lynn Randolph Between Worlds

Frequent collaborators, Lawndale is pleased to present Lynn Randolph and Jeffrey J. Kripal, J. Newton Rayzor Professor of Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University, in conversation about art, religion, and the spiritual in contemporary society.

Between Worlds responds to Randolph’s ongoing work with palliative care patients at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Comprised of approximately twenty drawings, these painstakingly rendered works deftly combine elements of the weird and scientific with acute psychological and metaphoric realism and builds bridges to the spiritual. In the words of curator Susie Kalil: “Lynn Randolph’s drawings come to grips with the realities of who we are, a spiritual tenor both dire and redeeming. Her works have soul as well as nerve- a sustained shriek about power and morality in a new global era. The silent fear of dying informs Randolph’s drawings, which ambush us with relentless personal conviction and spellbinding strangeness. Caught up in the medical paradigm of cure, we assent to heroic measures that may deprive us of final dignity. What is death and what does loss mean? What has happened to death as a community event and mourning as a communal practice? Randolph’s drawings remind us that we are embodied beings yearning for communion with one another, that we suffer pain and loss; that we struggle to transcend our bodies and our anguish by connecting with outer worlds and inner realms.”

Lynn Randolph grew up in Port Arthur, Texas. She earned her BFA from the University of Texas in Austin. Her paintings have appeared in many texts as they inform topics such as feminism, religion, cultural studies, and contemporary art. Randolph’s paintings have been exhibited and collected in permanent museum collections and other public and private institutions including: Bunting Institute at Radcliffe/Harvard; National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington, DC; Arizona State University Art Museum; San Antonio Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; and The Menil Collection. In 2008, Randolph became an artist in residence at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Here she considers herself a translator helping patients realize their memories, dreams, and reflections on their lives through art.

Susie Kalil is a former Core Fellow in Critical Studies at the Glassell School of Art, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. A frequent contributor to publications including ArtNews, Art in America, Artforum, Sculpture and Cite, she also previously served as managing editor of the Texas art journal Artlies, as well as Spot magazine, Houston Center for Photography. For the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, she co-curated (with Barbara Rose) the landmark exhibition Fresh Paint: The Houston School and The Texas Landscape: 1900-1986. She previously served as Visual Arts Director, DiverseWorks, Houston. Kalil is the author of the award-winning book Alexandre Hogue: An American Visionary (Texas A&M University Press) and curator of the Hogue retrospective, which traveled to the Art Museum of South Texas, the Grace Museum and the Fort Worth Museum of Science and History. She also co-curated the Hogue exhibition, which traveled to the Rockwell Museum (Corning, New York), the Dallas Museum of Art, and the Gilcrease Museum (Tulsa, Oklahoma). Kalil is the author of Dorothy Hood: The Color of Being/El Color del Ser (Texas A&M University Press) and curator of the Hood retrospective for the Art Museum of South Texas. She is currently at work on the monograph Roger Winter: Fire and Ice.

Jeffrey J. Kripal holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University. Jeff is the author of numerous books, including Comparing Religions: Coming to Terms (with Ata Anzali, Andrea R. Jain, and Erin Prophet), Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred and Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion. He is presently working on a three-volume study of paranormal currents in American history for the University of Chicago Press.