NewsRelease

Randy Wray Painting and Sculpture at Weatherspoon;
First One-Person Museum Show for Reidsville, NC, Native

GREENSBORO, NC – An exhibition of recent painting and sculpture by Reidsville, NC, native Randy Wray will be the first one-person museum exhibition for the New York-based artist.  The exhibition opened Sunday, Feb. 16, and will continue until April 20.

Wray has been making art since his middle school years in the late 1970s. By seventh grade, he was drawing, painting, and knotting macramé – and the works he produced earned him a scholarship to the North Carolina School of the Arts in Winston-Salem, NC. In February, 1983, during his senior year, he received a total of four NCSA Gold Key awards in the Scholastic Arts Awards Competition. The Weatherspoon Gallery Association recognized Wray's achievements in the competition, and presented him with a commemorative copy of American Art of the 20th Century.

Wray remembers the recognition of the NCSA and the Weatherspoon and the special encouragement it provided at a time that he considers to be the true beginning of his art career.  He subsequently earned a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Arts, and relocated to New York City in 1990, where he continues to work and reside. Most recently, Wray was awarded a fellowship by the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation in 2002.

Wray's sculptures are small, abstract creations constructed from a variety of art and non-art materials including papier-mâché, clay, seashells, glitter, and carborundum grits. Wray uses these sculptures as the basis of his drawings and paintings. From a digital photograph of one of his sculptures, Wray creates a linear contour drawing that he enlarges and projects onto a canvas, to which he applies paint, glitter, and other media. At close viewing, the paintings look like pixilated abstractions, but from a distance, they appear photographic.

Ron Platt, Weatherspoon curator of exhibitions, states that "Wray's two-pronged practice is an ideal vehicle for his explorations of a range of seemingly polar opposite relationships: handmade/technologically-generated; synthetic/organic; beauty/grotesquerie; abstraction/representation; and expressive/analytical."

Wray has produced a six-page gallery guide to accompany his exhibition, which will be available for sale in the Weatherspoon Museum Shop. He will visit the Weatherspoon on Thursday, April 10, and lead a gallery talk through his exhibition at 7 p.m.

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Weatherspoon Art Museum Information

Current Exhibitions: Also on view in February 2003:
    Jane Hammond: Falk Visiting Artist (continues until March 9)
    The Cone Family Legacy (continues until Feb. 16)
 

Hours: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.; Thursday, 10 a.m.-9 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 1-5 p.m.

Admission:  Visitor parking and admission to the museum are free. Please note: on weekdays, it is necessary to display a visitor's pass to park in the museum's designated spaces.  Please request a pass from the attendant at the first floor reception desk. The museum is wheelchair accessible.

For further information about upcoming exhibitions and artists, or to request images, please contact Patti Gross at (336) 334-5770 or email mpgross@uncg.edu.

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