RISE AND FALL: Randy Colosky
OCTOBER 3 - NOVEMBER 22, 2014
Randy Colosky, detail of engineered ceramic work (in progress)2014
Randy Colosky is a conceptual artist who transforms mundane materials into optically engaging, poetic works. For his second solo exhibition at Chandra Cerrito Contemporary, Colosky uses engineered ceramic block as the medium for freestanding sculptures in a range of scales and forms. This material, more commonly found in car engines and furnaces, is essentially an extruded grid of porcelain. Colosky assembles and carves into its honeycomb-like structure to create sculptures that hover between earthy--due to the clay-based nature of the material--and high tech--due to the pixilated optical quality of the gridded surface.
From certain vantage points, areas of the sculptures appear to completely dematerialize, as the negative spaces within the porcelain grid are all that are visible. This phenomenon invites viewers to actively engage in looking while moving around the works. In his most recent sculptures, forms resemble miniature earth works—ringed cavities, mountainous peaks and rippled surfaces—while earlier works recall ancient monoliths or the craggy rock formations of Chinese scholar stones. As with much of Colosky’s work, shapes appear to be midstream in the process of formation or decomposition, recognizing the ever-presence of flux and transition within the material world.
About the Artist
Randy Colosky earned his BFA in ceramics at the Kansas City Art Institute in 1987. He has exhibited extensively since 2005, including solo exhibitions at the Museum of Craft and Folk Art, the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, Ampersand International Arts and Adobe Books Back Room in San Francisco, a two-person exhibition at Miami Project, Miami, and group exhibitions at Frieze Art Fair, London, Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago, Paradise Ridge Sculpture Park in Santa Rosa, Kala Art Institute in Berkeley, and Southern Exposure, Root Division, The Lab, the Luggage Store and The Battery in San Francisco. Colosky is the recipient of numerous grants and awards, including those from the Andy Warhol Foundation, the Zellerbach Family Foundation and the Fleischhacker Foundation.
