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After working for a number of years on the Nightscapes from 1992-1994, Randy turned to Cityscapes by the light of day. The focus of these paintings became the intensity of light and shadow during the day, as seen in the plastic colors of signs, advertisements, patterns, pedestrians, traffic and crosswalks.
Randy says: I always felt that the viewer should demand from the painter the make and model of the cars in the paintings, simply as a way of giving the paintings relevance to the period of time in which they were painted. It is the same as if you would see the reflection of a person’s facial features in a pool of water on the sidewalk – you should expect the same degree of detail that you would find in a portrait, recording the details of the subject matter and the location so that you can logically understand it within the history of its place and time.
All of this detail in the Cityscapes was in stark contrast to the vast landscapes and atmospheric themes in his large landscape commissions as well as his more intimate rural compositions. Holding strongly to his dramatic representations of light and shadow and departing from the ever-popular Denver impressionistic trends that emerged out of The Art Students League of Denver in the mid 1990’s, Randy fought for the realities of his bold color choices and graphic compositions. The Cityscapes became one of Randy’s relatively smaller bodies of work, in line with the Light Bulb Series and The Chair Series, however they remain the most prominent of those three.
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