Lot 179 - Carl Randall - House of Reeves (08/08/2011)

ARTIST INFO

About 

CARL RANDALL is a British figurative painter whose work is based on images of modern Japan and London. A graduate of The Slade School of Fine Art, The Royal Drawing School London, and Tokyo University of Arts Japan, he is the winner of the BP Travel Award at The National Portrait Gallery, The Sunday Times Watercolour Competition, The Nomura Art Prize Japan, as well as several other awards. He has had several solo exhibitions in London and Japan, with group exhibitions at The National Portrait Gallery, The Royal Academy of Arts, The Jerwood Gallery, Flowers Gallery, The Mall Galleries, Christies New York & London, Tokyo Art Award, Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Arts; as well as at art fairs in Switzerland, Turkey, Japan and Taiwan. His work can be found in the collections of University College London Art Museum, Tokyo Geidai Art Museum Japan, The Royal Collection (being commissioned by HRH Prince of Wales), Foundation Carmignac Paris (joining works in their collection by Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Gerhard Richter), as well as in private collections in the UK, Japan, Australia and USA. His paintings have been featured on the BBC World Service and CNN, and his fine art prints are in the collection of the National Poetry Library, London Zoo, Cambridge University and Channel 4 News Studios. He was invited to be artist in residence in Hiroshima City to paint portraits of survivors of the Atomic Bomb, and at the Grand Prix Formula 1 Races in Japan. His BP Travel Award display of sixteen Japan paintings at the National Portrait Gallery in 2013 was accompanied by 'Japan Portraits' - a catalogue illustrating paintings and drawings made during his stay in Tokyo. The exhibition then travelled to Aberdeen Art Gallery Scotland; Wolverhampton Art Gallery England; and The Tokaido Hiroshige Museum, Shizuoka Japan. He is currently based in London. 

Education 

2009-2012 Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music (Tokyo Geidai), Tokyo Japan. Doctorate in Fine Art (Painting). 
 
2006-2009 Tokyo University of Fine Arts and Music (Tokyo Geidai), Tokyo Japan. Masters in Fine Art (Painting). 
 
2003-2005 Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation Scholarship, Tokyo Japan. 
 
2002-2003 The Royal Drawing School, London. The Drawing Year 2003. 
 
1995-1999 The Slade School of Fine Art, University College London. BA Honours Degree in Fine Art (Painting). 

Select Exhibitions/Awards 

Recent Exhibitions (Selected) 

2022 Small is Beautiful. Flowers Gallery, Cork St., London. 

2022 The Contemporary British Portrait Painters Exhibition. The  

Department Store, Brixton London. 

2022 Royal Society of Portrait Painters Exhibition. Mall Galleries  

London. 

2019 The Royal Academy of Arts Summer Exhibition. Royal Academy of Arts,  

London. 

2019 Art Fair Tokyo & Art Fair Osaka (Tokyo & Osaka, Japan). 

2015: Last of the Tide: Portraits of D-Day Veterans. The Queens Gallery,  

Buckingham Palace, London. Portraits commissioned by HRH Prince of Wales  

(King Charles) by leading UK portrait painters. 

2014 Art Volta. Basel, Switzerland. 

 
Statement about AOAP Submitted Artwork 

The painting shows and is named after the 'House of Reeves', an independent furniture store in Croydon south London, run by the same family for over 150 years London. On 8th of August 2011, during the London riots, the store was burnt down. In this painting I used a found photograph showing the store on fire, but replacing the arsonists and rioters with flying saucers, and AT-St Walkers/Tie-Fighters from Star Wars. This work is coupled with another image I did in 2020, made during the Black Lives Matter protests, in which the rioters are shown as they are, and the authorities replaced with Star Wars AT-AT walkers. These kind of themes are generally very unusual in my work, but give me an outlet for looking at social issues and my interest in sci-fi - creating images that combine cinema, surrealism and social realism. 

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