Work by Randy Klinger, founder of Moray Art Centre, to be exhibited at Nairn Community and Arts Centre
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A Moray artist is beginning a month-long exhibition of his work at the Nairn Community and Arts Centre on Friday.
Randy Klinger, from New York, has lived in Moray for the past 30 years and has exhibited across the UK, USA, Europe and Japan – and his work recently came second in the Derwent Art Prize, London & Paris.
The founder of the Moray Art Centre at Findhorn, Randy Klinger studied at The Cooper Union, New York City.
Since starting the Moray Art Centre, he has directed and taught working together with The British Museum, The Courtauld and National Galleries of Scotland to create historical exhibitions.
He said: "My sole aim is to create beauty – that is relevant to our time, to evoke presence through form, and to create uplifting visual poetry. Every day I draw, and every day I study art history. When I was a boy of seven, I had an overwhelming experience of beauty – felt physically.
"It happened when I was home alone, in the drab suburbs of New York, and saw the modern dance of Martha Graham on the telly -– like an electric charge, from my feet to my head, I experienced an aesthetic ecstasy.
"Since that day I make pictures with a desire to create images that also might have this power, leaving the viewer speechless - art as the upliftment of the psyche."
Mr Klinger said: "In this exhibition, I will show works from the past three years, with two themes: Self Portraits: “Before I Die”, and Person in a Room Series."
The first explores people as they enter the fourth-quarter of their lives, and the latter is based on Mr Klinger’s love of Vermeer, by trying to create a "Vermeer’ in our own time".
"I have been studying Vermeer for decades, and I began to wonder, “How could one create a ‘Vermeer’ in our own time: a woman, set in a genre-like domestic scene, attention to light and still-life objects, and find beauty and meaning for a 21st century public?" he said.
