Randy Dunham

 “…making art work has been a creative outlet for me for as long as I can remember.” My artwork has grown and developed from realism to surrealism, adding abstractions of real objects. I thank God for the inspiration and the challenge which allows me to create new artwork.” - Randy Dunham

Born in Troy, New York in 1961 and deaf since birth, Dunham formed a great connection with the visual world. Throughout his childhood and most of college, he focused on creating realistic work “better than a camera”. Soon Dunham began to feel unchallenged by his realistic style; after receiving the suggestion to create images from his thoughts rather than reality, Dunham found a new challenge and solace in creating art from his own imaginative perspective. Dunham’s “neo-surrealism” focuses on transforming lifeless, industrial shapes into a world of fantasy.

He attended The New York State School for the Deaf in Rome, New York, where he continued developing his art skills. After his graduation from high school in 1979, he went to college at National Technical Institute for the Deaf at Rochester Institute of Technology, studying applied art, then medical lab technology.

Randy Dunham's art is a form of focus employing reflection, refraction, and transparency, which transform randomly selected inanimate and industrial shape into a spectacle of wonder and vision. These transformed objects come to life through the mastery of created illusions of transparency and levitation. A dazzling array of color shifts and vibrant accents are incorporated on the surface of these dreamlike art forms. He refers to his work as “A mixing of science and art.” The laws of nature seem reversed, yet are portrayed stunningly in a realistic style that takes the viewer beyond the limits of reality, into vast new dimensions of the fantastically impossible. A new life for the beholder is born via his inspirational message - from a world where time is eternal and space is infinite- leaving a pleasing "after-image" on the soul, the artist's true mark.

Dunham’s piece entitled “Complicated Contrast” exemplifies the artist’s great ability to combine nature and illusion. He incorporates a mountain range, sky and body of water as the background of the piece. He utilizes different vibrantly colored shapes and architecturally structured objects as the focus.  The blue sky is divided by a light brown structure, only to have the sky above the structure fade into a pale pink. The use of naturally occurring colors juxtaposed with vibrant loud colors conveys the interruption of natural order.  The ordinarily lifeless forms give off electricity and move through space without regard to gravity. Colorful cubes fall through the ceiling of the piece into water while other shapes levitate freely. The realistic portrayal of the objects in this ‘complicated’ setting forms a beautiful unity between realism and abstraction.