Randall Sellers:
Clairvoyants and Other Survivors

Gallery II
Solo Exhibit

Opening reception - Saturday, October 14th, 7pm-9pm

October 14, 2006 through November 11, 2006

Randall Sellers
"Clairvoyants and Other Survivors"
Gallery II
On View October 14th - November 11th, 2006
Opening Reception Saturday October 14th, 2006 from 7 p.m - 9 p.m.

New York, NY September 2006 – For his first solo exhibition of new works at Jonathan LeVine Gallery, Clairvoyants & Other Survivors, Randall Sellers continues his meticulous exploration of drawings of imaginary landscapes and figures. Using .3mm mechanical pencils, filed down to a point on an emery board, Sellers’ impossibly miniscule landscapes are an exercise in concentration that pushes the limits of our visual experience. Clairvoyants & Other Survivors highlights a new direction for Sellers, including his most complex drawing to date, featuring delightful vignettes within inexplicable landscapes. Viewers will enjoy a playful exercise in ocular concentration using magnifying glasses provided at the exhibition.

Sellers presents unreachable worlds that are both deeply personal and universal, juxtaposing fear, fantasy, and adventure in post-apocalyptic, exotic urban environments. Drawing from imagination, memory, and observation, Sellers’ landscapes are layered with multiple narratives. Curious renderings that surface from his subconscious include elegant women cavorting with men in suits amidst a backdrop of ruins, sci-fi towers, hillside grottoes, and abandoned airliners overgrown with weeds. Books, skulls and Minotaurs allude to symbolic references, however his miniature worlds remain unsolved mysteries.

In creating quiet, conservative renderings, Sellers formulates oblique references to geopolitics and taboos, his fabricated worlds inviting contemporary cultural scrutiny. Through painstaking technique and detailed execution, Seller’s creates dense labyrinths, alternate universes with mythological undertones that evoke a cornucopia of uncertainties.

Sellers’ early influences include Mad Magazine, Richard Scarry, a book of sci-fi illustrations, and classic music. His later influences include Pieter Breugel, Jean-Auguste Dominque, Mark Ryden, Lewis Mumford, Bernard Rudofsky, Italo Calvino, and Italian film director Federico Fellini. Sellers developed an avid fascination and obsession for topography and city infrastructures, as well as ancient history, architecture, and anthropomorphism that has shaped his distinct style and embodies his work.

A graduate of Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia, including studies at Temple University in Rome, Italy, Randall Sellers and has received national and international acclaim, exhibiting in solo shows in Santa Monica, Boston and Philadelphia, and group shows at the John Michael Kohler Art Center in Wisconsin and Tomio Koyama Gallery in Tokyo. Sellers’ work has been acquired by numerous institutions including: Museum of Modern Art (Judith Rothschild Collection), Philadelphia Museum of Art, High Museum in Atlanta, New Museum of Contemporary Art (Altoids Collection), and 21C Museum in Louisville, Kentucky. Sellers’ work has been reviewed in Art Review,  Philadelphia Magazine, Philadelphia Weekly, Boston Globe, Los Angeles Times, and Artnet.com.