Randy Shull: Black & White

Tracey Morgan Gallery
August 9 - September 21, 2024

Randy Shull: Black & White is on view at Tracey Morgan Gallery through September 21, 2024.

Shull has the unique ability to evoke both gravity and weightlessness within a single artwork, pouring thick layers of paint around the loose weave of handmade hammocks, a material that he has been incorporating in his work for several years. Hammocks are core to life in the Yucatán peninsula of Mexico where Shull has lived part-time for the past 18 years, and where he maintains a studio in the historic center of Mérida. If art and hammocks are the vehicles of dreams, Shull’s work carves a path into the subconscious. 

As objects, hammocks are extremely strong and malleable, with a rich cultural history. Shull at once honors this craft and lineage while treating it irreverently, exploring the boundaries of what a painting can be with tireless experimentation. In these heavily textured almost muscular works, Shull subverts the very notion of a painting, reversing the usual roll of canvas and paint. Using paint as a binder to hold the hammocks together, he creates a radical new material that is culled from the histories of art and craft while decidedly pointing towards their futures. 

Click here to learn more about the exhibition.

Tracey Morgan Gallery
22 London Road
Asheville, NC 28803

Shull is featured in HEMPHILL's current exhibition, BELKIN · CALDWELL · SHULL, on view through August 24, 2024.