by Elizabeth Stanard

A 24 year-old Austin native of African American and Creole descent, oil painter Charles Randolph welcomed me into his East Side home to discuss the realties of being a young black visual artist in Austin. After we talked a while in his bedroom/living room/painting studio, Charles invited me to peak in his closet/bathroom, where he stores all of his work.

ADA: So, tell me about your art.

CR: It's all figurative. I'm not really into the abstract thing right now. I like to deal with social and political issues and throw in political images, words. But definitely realistic figurative painting, dealing with people and their bodies.

ADA: What inspires your realism?

CR: Anything that I've experienced, like this war that's going on or some girl. Anything I can really relate to that bothers me. It's usually something that frustrates me or pisses me off. Maybe I feel the need to change something. But I definitely feel like if you have any spiritual motivation in your life and you're an artist, then that should bleed into your work. Dealing with humanity. When I paint a picture, I want somebody to look at it and read it and walk away from it with something to think about the rest of the day. I take real events, and I kind of freak them out a little bit.

ADA: So how do viewers respond to your interpretation of reality?

CR: I've gotten some good feedback, a lot of questions on why I did this or why I did that. Like this painting of O.J. Simpson and Eldridge Cleaver and Emmett Till. And it's a picture dealing with interracial relationships. And I think that kind of offended people. They thought I was saying it was wrong. But you gotta read deeper. You gotta know who each character is and what happened to each character and what they experienced.

ADA: How does your identity as a young black man manifest in your work?

CR: Well, naturally. I don't sit here and think, "Oh, I'm going to make this a black painting." It's all meshed into one thing, and you're just spitting it out on paper.

ADA: What's it like being a black artist in Austin?

CR: If you want to paint anything ethnic, then you have to stick to your ethnic gallery as far as my experience goes. I've been to galleries all over Austin, and there are no ethnic painters there. They have their own favorite painters that they like to stick to. For instance, if I were to have a series of all black paintings, and go to some of these galleries in Tarrytown or Westlake, there wouldn't be a chance. The gallery owners don't think that there is a market for it. And they could be right because Austin alone doesn't really have a big art scene. So if Austin alone doesn't have a big art scene, then the black art scene is going to be very, very tiny. So the only places that we show at are the black museum, the Carver Museum, or at Harold's DiverseArts Little Gallery.

ADA: Is there a community of black artists in Austin?

CR: There's a black art community in Austin, but it's weak. There is a black art group here that I'm working with. But since there are no actual black galleries in town now except the Bydee Gallery on 6th Street, and he shows his own work, then there should be a lot of support among the black artists to push each other. And there's not. And I've noticed there's a lot of stuck up attitudes. They want to see a certain type of work.

ADA: And what is that?

CR: Pleasant work. I had a show at the Carver Museum. Bunch of great people. But I had a painting that was pretty explicit, and it had some religious messages in there. And they stuck it in the closet. They would not hang it.

ADA: So what do you think their concerns were? I see art all the time that addresses religious, cultural, sexual and social issues.

CR: I think one, it was a family show. But any art show in town is a family art show. I haven't been to one art show that says don't invite your children, except maybe an erotic art show. So they told me that, "Well, it was a little too much for us" and too extreme, and they didn't want to see it. And I didn't know until the day of the opening. It was a direct hit on the whole Jesus thing and religion, and I'm sure they weren't too happy about that. And there was a woman spreading her legs. But it wasn't erotic.

ADA: What do you think they were anticipating would happen if they showed this piece?

CR: I think they were anticipating bad media coverage, bad critique. I heard a couple of people saying that the news was there and they would have focused in on that one picture. My argument is that if you're trying to get publicity for your gallery or museum, any kind of publicity is good. If you want people to come and see your gallery, put some controversial stuff in there. If it's the same damn critique every year, pretty pictures by these local artists, people get bored with that kind of crap. You got to stir up the leaves a little bit to get people thinking.

ADA: What would you like to see happen to the black arts scene in Austin?

CR: Well, to have more than one place to show and to have a more open mind towards what black artists are painting and less restrictions. Come on, it's 2001. Let's do some serious work. Not bubble gum art. Being black and being of any kind of color, it's not pretty. As far as the black movement in Austin, I'd like to see something more raw and (for it to) quit being so damned passive.

ADA: How are you attempting to achieve this?

CR: Oh, everything I'm doing. Me, just keeping on painting the stuff that I paint. Not just trying to please the gallery owners. Going out and creating my own shows, finding spaces to put my own shows on. Just doing it all myself is the only thing I can do. I'm directing an art show in December at Blue Genie. I had this idea last year to do this huge art show/sale for three days. And as far as getting help, I've learned already, I mean them pulling down that one painting of mine, that shows me right there that you can't get too much help from a lot of people here in town, even if they are black.

[For more information on Charles Randolph's work and his upcoming show, "The Blue Bizarre," check out Blue Genie Art Industries' website at www.bluegenieart.com.]