Randy Bacon

Dusty crossroads, wide-open skies, and peacefully nestled buildings distinguish Randy Bacon's paintings of West Texas and New Mexico.  His long, horizontal canvases, like calm, lingering sighs, echo the vast, extended horizon of the Southwest region. These scenes, which are defined more by architectural and geographic features than by human characters, reminisce over farm roads and forgotten towns tucked into the rural fabric of the Western frontier.  Many of Bacon's sites attest to arrested development in their dichotomous layers of past expansion and present desolation.  Although human figures compose a minimal, if not altogether nonexistent, visual component of Bacon's paintings, human activity is etched in the agricultural use of the land and in the artifactual buildings.  With his choices of subject matter and composition, Bacon searches for and maps the emotional terrain of each unique place.

Exploring the back roads of Texas and New Mexico, Bacon selects quiet junctures, rather than majestic attractions, to epitomize the feeling of a certain locale.  Avoiding the overtly romantic, and replacing it instead with unpretentious emptiness, Bacon's work shares a commonality with the landscape paintings of contemporary realist Julie Bozzi.  Both artists focus on the overlooked, the unassuming, the isolated.  The dramatic loneliness of Bacon's carefully staged scenes suggests a just finished or impending narrative.  Time-warped combinations of past prosperity and present stillness tempt the viewer with questions of what has happened and what will happen at this intersection.

Bacon reveals the quiet, yet stunning, beauty of what we might otherwise pass by too quickly. He plots the intermediary points along a journey, the places one unthinkingly sweeps through on the way to a more alluring endpoint.  As Bacon reminds us with his emotionally poignant paintings, oftentimes the journey is more important—and more intriguing—than the destination.

Submitted by Catherine Deitchman, a writer living in Dallas, Texas.  She has written reviews and feature articles for Texas art journals ArtLies and Glasstire.  The source of her information is her interview with the artist, 26 October 2005.

© Catherine Deitchman 2005

The following is from the artist.

Artist Statement:

I have always been attracted to the quality of light, the precise colors and the big skies of my native Texas.  In communicating a sense of place, my representational oil landscapes often have a narrative, cinematic feel.  I draw upon the people and venues of my life to bring about work where past, present and future become blended, where memory and reality connect.  In the vastness of the West Texas landscape, I search for situations that reveal the extraordinary in the ordinary.

This land I am connected to often appears to be caught in a time warp, and I try to capture the timelessness of its quiet isolation.

Education:
University of Texas at Austin (1976-1977) - Studio Art
Southern Methodist University, BFA (1980) - Journalism, Studio Art
Abilene Christian University (1983-1984) - Post-Graduate Studies, Painting
Texas Christian University (2003-2004) - Advanced Painting and Drawing

Exhibitions:
Old Jail Art Center, Albany, Texas (solo)
Panhandle-Plains Historic Museum, Canyon, Texas (group)
Museum of East Texas Culture, Palestine, Texas

Randy Bacon was born in Abilene,Texas and currently resides and works in Albany, Texas. He studied studio art at the University of Texas at Austin, and earned his bachelor of fine arts degree in studio art and journalism from Southern Methodist University. Before choosing painting as his true vocation, Bacon was president of Stuart Bacon Advertising and Public Relations in Fort Worth, Texas, a full-service agency he cofounded with Jim Stuart.

During a summer fellowship in painting at the Vermont Studio Center, Bacon had the opportunity to improve his skill and develop his personal style. His decision to return to painting full-time followed. Continuing to grow as an artist, Bacon was awarded a full scholarship at Texas Christian University, where he earned his master of fine arts degree in painting.

Randy Bacon has always been attracted to the quality of light, the precise colors, and the big skies of his native state. In communicating a sense of place, Bacon often draws upon the people and venues of his life to bring about work where past, present, and future become blended, where memory and reality connect.

Selected Biographical and Career Highlights

1957: Born in Abilene, Texas
1976–1977: Studio Art, University of Texas at Austin
1980: BFA, Studio Art and Journalism, Southern Methodist University
2003: Fellowship in painting, Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, Vermont
2007: MFA, Painting, Texas Christian University
Resides in Albany, Texas

Selected Exhibitions

2007 - The Artist's Eye, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth
2007 - Hunting Art Prize Exhibition, Houston
2007 - The Texas Five, Museum of East Texas Culture, Palestine
2007–2012 - Annual Invitational, Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon
2008–2012 - Preservation is the Art of the City, Fort Worth Community Arts Center, Fort Worth
2009 - A Cell of One’s Own, The Old Jail Art Center, Albany
2009 - Trinity Perspectives, Views of An Urban River, Fort Worth Community Arts Center, Fort Worth
2010 - Art of the Red River War: A Clash of Cultures on the Southern Plains, Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum, Canyon
2010 - Drawing on the Past: Selections from the Bobbie and John Nau Collection of Texas Art, Grace Museum, Abilene
2011–2012 - Familiar Territory: The Art of Randy Bacon, National Ranching Heritage Center, Texas Tech University, Lubbock
2012 - Restless Heart: Contemporary Texas Regionalism, San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, San Angelo
2013 - Holidays at the Haley, Haley Memorial Library, Midland
2014 - Painting in the Texas Tradition: Contemporary Texas Regionalism, Turner House, Dallas
2015 - Painting in the Texas Tradition: Contemporary Texas Regionalism, Pearl Fincher Museum of Fine Arts, Spring
2015 - Ties that Bind: Contemporary Texas Regionalism, Turner House, Dallas

Selected Public Collections

Baldwin Anthony Securities Inc., Dallas
Burlington Northern Santa Fe, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Grace Museum, Abilene
Mansefeldt Corporation, Abilene
Moncrief Oil, Fort Worth
Waterford Capital, Dallas
Woodbine Development Corporation, Dallas