Randy Wray
Randy Wray (b. 1965, Reidsville, North Carolina) makes layered, accretive paintings and sculptures that engage abstraction through the dissection and reconstruction of form carried out over the course of months, if not years. Wray, who has developed his practice over four decades, makes oil paintings that function much like Rorschach inkblots. While remaining ambiguous and nonrepresentational, his forms nonetheless gesture in multiple directions—geological, botanical, anatomical, extraterrestrial. Teeming with facture from numerous revisions and rendered in earthy hues mixed with unexpected, electric accents, Wray’s paintings embody the evolution inherent in all life-forms. His sculptures, which inform his paintings and vice versa, similarly seem to grow from the inside out, expanding as they take in the residuum of our material reality. Wray lives in Brooklyn.
Wray’s recent solo and two-person exhibitions include Lo Brutto Stahl, Paris (2023); 15 Orient, Brooklyn (2022); and MAMOTH, London (2022). His work is in the collections of, among others, the Art Institute of Chicago; Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio; Ennova Museum, Langfang, China; Museu de Arte Moderna do Rio de Janeiro; Start Museum, Shanghai; and Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina.
Born 1965, Reidsville, North Carolina
Lives in Brooklyn, New York
EDUCATION
1987
BFA, Maryland Institute, College of Art, Baltimore
1987
Alliance of Independent Colleges of Art Studio Program, New York
1983
University of North Carolina, School of the Arts, Winston-Salem
SELECTED SOLO AND TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2023
Lo Brutto Stahl, Paris, Wertenbroek/Wray
2022
15 Orient, New York City, Travelogue
Mamoth, London, Particulars
2016
Dorsky, New York City, Different Roads – Same Destination: Arthur Simms & Randy Wray
2005
Derek Eller Gallery, New York City, Heaven on High
2003
Greenville County Art Museum, Greenville, South Carolina
Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina
2002
Derek Eller Gallery, New York City
Feature Inc., New York, Randy Wray and Lorenzo De Los Angeles
2000
Derek Eller Gallery, New York City
1995
Galleria Camargo Vilaça, São Paulo
1993
White Columns, New York City
SELECTED Group Exhibitions
2024
70 Main Street, Thomaston, Maine, A Particular Kind of Heaven
Gratin, New York City, The 14th Floor
2023
Mamoth, London, The Colour of Pomegranates
Lo Brutto Stahl, Paris, Inauguration
Gratin, New York City, Greenhouse
2022
Meredith Rosen, New York City, Scouring
Matthew Brown, Los Angeles, Their Private Worlds Contained the Memory of a Painting that had Shapes as Reassuring as the Uncanny Footage of a Sonogram, curated by Sedrick Chisom
2021
Below Grand, New York City, The Marble Mouth Oracle, curated by Andrew Woolbright
Provincetown Art Association and Museum, Massachusetts, Lillian Orlowsky and William Freed Grant Honorees Exhibition
2019
56 Henry, New York City, Notebook, curated by Joanne Greenbaum
2016
Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York City, Objecty
2015
Junior Projects, New York City, Rock Hound Swap Meet
2013
Lehman College Art Gallery, New York City, Morphology of the Print
2012
Jason McCoy Gallery, New York City, Paper Band
2011
BRIC Rotunda Gallery, Brooklyn, New York City, 30: A Brooklyn Salon
2010
Gering and Lopez Gallery, New York City, Love in Vein: Editions Fawbush projects & artists
2009
Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, North Carolian, Cool, Collected & In Context
2008
Socrates Sculpture Park, New York City, Waste Not Want Not
Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina, Art on Paper
International Print Center New York City, New Prints 2008/Spring
2007
Schmidt Center Gallery, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Florida, Delicatessen
Derek Eller Gallery, New York City, NeoIntegrity, curated by Keith Mayerson
Rubin Museum of Art, New York City, Written on the Wind
2006
Kate MacGarry Gallery, London, Ragged
Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, Razzle Dazzle
Derek Eller Gallery, New York City, Summer Group Exhibition
Derek Eller Gallery, New York, City Inaugural Group Exhibition
2005
PS1 Center for Contemporary Art, New York City, Greater New York
Sandra Gering Gallery, New York City, Five05
BRIC Rotunda Gallery, New York City, Decipher: Hand Painted Digital
2003
White Columns, New York City, Fast Forward: Twenty Years of White Rooms
Feature Inc., New York City, Small Scale Sculpture and Anonymous Tantra Paintings
2002
Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, Post-Digital Painting
Derek Eller Gallery, New York City, Landscape
1998
Jack Tilton Gallery, New York City, Yun-Fei Ji, Andrea Dezso, Randy Wray
Thread Waxing Space, New York City, Message to Pretty
1997
Daniel Silverstein Gallery, New York City, Prosthetic Garden
1996
Momenta Art, Brooklyn, New York City
1995
Kenny Schacter, New York City, Oy!
Lombard-Freid Fine Arts, New York City, Wheel of Fortune
Exit Art, New York City, Way Cool
Guggenheim Gallery, Chapman University, Orange, California, Fabrication: Formal, Found, and Funky
1994
Apex Art, New York City, Athena & Arachne, curated by Casey Kaplan
Lauren Wittels Gallery, New York City, Huma Bhabha, Aleya Saad, Randy Wray
COLLECTIONS
Art Institute of Chicago
Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio
Ennova Museum, Langfang, China
Goldman Sachs, New York City
Greenville County Art Museum, South Carolina
JP Morgan Chase Bank, New York City
Museu de Arte Moderna, Rio de Janeiro
Museum of Sex, New York City
Neuberger Berman, New York City
Progressive Corporation, Cleveland
Rubin Museum of Art, New York City
Start Museum, Shanghai
Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina
AWARDS
2020
Adolph & Esther Gottlieb Grant
2019
Irving Sandler Prize
Lillian Orlowsky and William Freed Grant
2015
New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, Painting
2013
Adolph & Esther Gottlieb Grant
2011
Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation Space Program
2002
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship
1990
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture
CURATORIAL PROJECTS
2015
Junior Projects, New York City, Rock Hound Swap Meet
1994
Caren Golden Fine Art, New York City, Al Dente
