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 AND FELLOWSHIPS
2002
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship
1990
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture
1987
BFA, Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore
Studio Program, Alliance of Independent Colleges of Art, New York
1983
University of North Carolina School of the Arts, Winston-Salem
SELECTED SOLO AND TWO-PERSON EXHIBITIONS
2025
Karma, New York, Prehistory
2023
Lo Brutto Stahl, Paris, Wertenbroek/Wray
2022
15 Orient, New York, Travelogue
MAMOTH, London, Particulars
2016
Dorsky Gallery, New York, Different Roads–Same Destination: Assemblage Sculptures of Randy Wray and Arthur Simms
2005
Derek Eller Gallery, New York, Heaven on High
2003
Greenville County Museum of Art, South Carolina
Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina
2002
Derek Eller Gallery, New York
Feature Inc., New York, Randy Wray: Sculpture and Lorenzo De Los Angeles: Drawing
2000
Derek Eller Gallery, New York
1995
Galeria Camargo Vilaça, São Paulo
1993
White Columns, New York
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2024
70 Main Street, Thomaston, Maine, A Particular Kind of Heaven
Gratin, New York, The 14th Floor
2023
MAMOTH, London, The Colour of Pomegranates
Lo Brutto Stahl, Paris, Inauguration
Gratin, New York, Greenhouse
2022
Meredith Rosen Gallery, New York, 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, The Marble Mouth Oracle, curated by Andrew Woolbright
2019
56 Henry, New York, Notebook, curated by Joanne Greenbaum
2016
Tibor de Nagy Gallery, New York, Objecty
2013
Lehman College Art Gallery, New York, Morphology of the Print
2012
Jason McCoy Gallery, New York, Paper Band
2011
BRIC Rotunda Gallery, New York, 30: A Brooklyn Salon, curated by Elizabeth Ferrer
2009
Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina, Cool, Collected & In Context
2008
Socrates Sculpture Park, New York, Waste Not, Want Not
Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina, Art on Paper
Print Center New York, New Prints 2008/Spring
2007
Schmidt Center Gallery, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, Delicatessen
Derek Eller Gallery, New York, Neointegrity, curated by Keith Mayerson
Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art, New York, Written on the Wind: The Flag Project
2006
Kate MacGarry, London, Ragged
John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, Razzle Dazzle
Derek Eller Gallery, New York, Inaugural Group Exhibition
2005
P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, New York, Greater New York
Sandra Gering Inc., New York, Five05
BRIC Rotunda Gallery, New York, Decipher: Hand Painted Digital
2003
White Columns, New York, Fast Forward: Twenty Years of White Rooms
Feature Inc., New York, Small Scale Sculpture and Anonymous Tantra Paintings on Paper
2002
Cranbrook Art Museum, Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, Post-Digital Painting
Derek Eller Gallery, New York, Landscape
1998
Jack Tilton Gallery, New York, Yun-Fei Ji, Andrea Dezso, Randy Wray
Thread Waxing Space, New York, Message to Pretty, curated by Lia Gangitano
1997
Daniel Silverstein Gallery, New York, Prosthetic Garden
1996
Momenta Art, New York
1995
Kenny Schachter, New York, Oy!
Lombard-Freid Projects, New York, Wheel of Fortune
Exit Art / The First World, New York, WAY COOL
Guggenheim Gallery, Chapman University, Orange, California, Fabrication: Formal, Found, and Funky
1994
apexart, New York, Athena & Arachne, curated by Casey Kaplan
Lauren Wittels Gallery, New York, Huma Bhabha, Aleya Saad, Randy Wray
PUBLIC COLLECTIONS
Art Institute of Chicago
Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio
ENNOVA Art Museum, Langfang, China
Greenville County Museum of Art, South Carolina
Museu de Arte Moderna do Río de Janeiro
Rubin Museum of Himalayan Art, New York
Start Museum, Shanghai
Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina
AWARDS
2019
Irving Sandler Prize
2011
Marie Walsh Sharpe Art Foundation Space Program
