Philosophy                            

My goal is to create a new artistic language and change the direction of art for the twenty-first century. This new direction is moving diametrically away from nineteenth century modern art, and twentieth century àvant garde/postmodern. Few artists today have the courage to reject modernist ideas, such as Realism, Primitivism and reductive thinking of the last century - as well as Abstraction, Surrealism/Pop Art and Dada/Conceptual. The neo-Dadaist, anti-Art game approach expands the boundaries of art by declaring the non-Art art, thereby eroding the foundations of art. The line has been blurred which once separated nature from art. The Duchamp camp views itself as an alternative art form. The iconoclastic practices of this art form have become familiar and passé, and have now been embraced by popular culture. The purpose of great art has always been to be a maker of art and not a destroyer of it. The intentional, illogic ideas placed forth by this movement have confused the viewer and weakened the essence of art. I am trying to reverse this process by tightening boundaries that will make art more recognizable to the viewer and enabling it to regain its proper status in society.

Woman with Red Blanket Figurative Painting, Figurative Painter, Draughtsman in Wingdale, NY

I define myself as a figurative draftsman, painter, and sculptor. The prime mover of creativity of all my art is the platonic soul of the figure. The source for creativity radiates outward from the heart of the figure--outward into every part of my paintings or sculptures. The figure or figures give artistic life to the art and human meaning to the viewer. The Platonic Soul guides this maker in creating timeless form. Commensurability is the primary aesthetic force that breathes timelessness into the artistic idea.

History has often defined ideal as a harmonic of sweet beauty presented as an end and a substitute for truth. This has given the word ideal a bad connotation. Therefore, I use the words visual ideal to mean a melodic dialogue between harmony and dissonance, as the aesthetic, to present content. This creates a beauty that is used as a means to excite the viewer's interest toward truth within my art.

 

Since 1973, I have been working full-time as a professional figurative artist. This has enabled me to produce a large body of figurative work that presents itself in serial format. From the first series on, the work has had the Randolphlee look. I did not start with a signature painting and then proceed to make variations for each series, as a post-WWII modernist would have done. Each of my series has its own unique schematic language that reveals a visual language evolving in a time of transition. The first series began minimal, flat and colorful, related closely to hard edge painting. The sequence of the series quickly evolved toward the 21st century incorporating a complex structure and developed form.

In 1990, the work was ready for a big change from interpreting nature schematically, a modernist holdover from the great schematic thinker, Picasso, to one that interprets through reconciliation with nature. My new paintings and sculptures have nothing in common with the current group of realists.

My new paintings and sculptures have nothing in common with the current group of Realists. These are the early Modern Realists of the 19th century, turned Neo-Realists, the lingering Photorealists of the 70's which are part of the avant garde, and the new Academic Realists that are hopelessly romantic.

My most recent art draws its inspiration from areas of the Renaissance and ancient Greeks, which were inappropriate choices for the modernist. To create a new art direction from these areas of history, I stay purposely away from Romanticism, an escape from the realities of life, and by doing so, this gives my work truth and believability without resorting to realism, a modernist idea. In the act of creation, Michelangelo was not a reactionary, nor did he think in terms of the third person about the Greeks. He thought as a Greek but tempered by his own times, as he walked, so am I.