Randal Leek

My sculptures are intended to be an important and intimate compliment to the art collector’s life. My career has been rather frantic, managing projects in foreign, war-torn countries, implementing assistance projects for refugees and displaced families. My art began during those years of refugee assistance and emergency disaster response as a kind of spiritual therapy for myself and my colleagues; as an expression of solace and grace amidst the harsh reality of disparate times. Certainly I have political views and a huge interest in social progress, in justice and human rights, but I also have the certainty that in order for those of us who grow through the love of art, that my work does not need to be representative of our Human Condition. I want that expression of “other” to be abstract, and gentle, meditative and fundamentally inspirational. I want some aspect of my sculptures to excite imagination, and maybe even engage in empathy for a more insightful consciousness. I want to land somewhere above the fray of our collective reality. I want to be an agent of growth, not an agent of repair of our perception of a struggling existence.

“Art Objects: Essays on Ecstasy and Effrontery,” by Jeanette Winterson (1995) describes more clearly how I want my art to not be “normal”, certainly not to be predictable, but rather to take you home, in a sense. To a home where you are exploring something slightly uncomfortable; new and challenging and interesting to live with today and always; that you can discover something new with each new perspective as time goes on. My backstory is and has been throughout my life, about growth from experiential learning. I continue to explore and question and observe. I hope a bit of that comes out in my art.