Sculpture grad SV Randall (MFA ’16) has created an epoxy sculpture of the human nervous system, which is now on display at the Hudson D. Walker Gallery, where he is a work center fellow, in Provincetown, Mass. He says it’s the first time he’s made a sculpture based on the human body, but as a project, it engages with his desire to blend chemistry with art.
Randall was attracted to painting during his undergraduate years, but decided instead to pursue his MFA in Sculpture + Extended Media at VCUarts. “I started to have an engagement with sculptures and installations,” he says, and chose to attend VCUarts because “they just have the best reputation for sculpture.”
To learn more, Wicked Local Provincetown met with Randall to chat about his latest exhibition.
A large round object filled with a murky-looking yellow substance sits in the middle of his work center studio. It resembles a pool filled with toxic mold.
“It started off as a wishing well,” Randall says. “It will be filled with sulfur.” He grabs a bag of powdered sulfur from a table and takes a whiff. It smells like fireworks or gunpowder. There’s a reason he started using it.
“I think I’m attracted to it for how loaded it is,” he says, adding that it smells like adrenaline. Sulfur baths, he says, are purifying.
“I like that a well is naturally occurring, and a wishing well has been fabricated,” Randall says. He’s intrigued that people throw coins into wells and make wishes — a ritual that is both hopeful and mystical. His plan for the piece solidified when he checked out the Walker Gallery. He decided that it needed a well. “I never really make things without thinking about the space they are in,” he adds.
Randall has also been looking at the way that copper oxidizes, and figuring out how to screen print with sulfur on copper. He’s made images in black, white and silver on copper.
Read more at Wicked Local Provincetown.
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