Randolph (Randy) WALL
Born: 1943, in Lakeland, FL
Medium:  Relief Printmaking and Painting
 
    Randy grew up on a farm in a rural Florida community. He spent many hours exploring the nearby woodlands and swamps, providing a lifelong interest in nature.  Botany and Bacteriology were his undergraduate major at the University of South Florida, and he then earned a PhD in Microbiology from Indiana University for research on animal viruses.  As a Postdoctoral Fellow at Columbia he discovered the major pathway for making messenger RNA (mRNA).  He joined the UCLA School of Medicine Faculty in 1972.  There, using DNA cloning, his research produced fundamental discoveries in immunology and cancer.  His Lab was one of the first in the world to clone antibody genes. His research also determined the mechanisms controlling antibody expression and later identified genetic changes involved in leukemia and lymphoma. Officially retiring in 2008, Randy continued research and teaching Molecular Biology at UCLA until 2018.  
     Randy has had a long interest in art, design and architecture.  He began collecting prints and ceramics during graduate school and has continued collecting since.  His principal inspiration for painting and printmaking has been frequent visits to The Sea Ranch on California’s north coast. The redwood-sided buildings, sculpted and greyed by decades of weather he found especially captivating.  Over the years, he did watercolor and acrylic paintings of weathered wood.  In seeking to add a sculptural dimension he began making relief imprints of deeply-textured woods—by embossing on heavy-weight, handmade watercolor paper.  The weathered wood relief prints in the Arcs, Circles and Lines Series were first made in 2018. 
     The burnt wood relief prints in this series were inspired by Yakisugi the deliberately-charred boards on the exteriors of Japanese buildings, and by wood burned in the wildfires of Northern California.  Embossed imprinted woodgrain images are finished with applications of sumi ink, acrylic and/or charcoal to bring out the fine detail of the 3-D woodgrain and to render the character and patina of weathered or burnt wood.  Each finished relief print is a unique monoprint.  The finished prints are then mounted on archival backing, marked with his seal and protected with sprayed coats of UV-resistant acrylic spray.  These relief prints have the essence of Sabi - the Japanese term for beauty in aged, simple things that have been distinctly-marked by the passage of time. 
     Randy Wall has combined two different creative ventures: doing science and making art.   E. O. Wilson, a world renowned biologist and Pulitzer Prize winning author. has resolved this matter perfectly:

“ In science and in art, creativity is the discovery of the unknown or seeing the known
   in a  new way.  There is no better high than discovery.”