A blank canvas for Randy Shull

White space

For a space to create his large-scale works, artist Randy Shull built a big, blank canvas

Randy Shull maintains a large warehouse studio in Asheville, N.C., and a mid-century modern home in Mérida, where he and his partner, Hedy Fischer, collect contemporary art. But Shull needed a roomier studio to create his own large-scale works. Construction began in early 2021 when he hollowed out a private home near Parque Santa Ana. He invited friends to inaugurate the studio a year later. He was most recently working on pieces that incorporate hammock materials, and the new space affords Randy plenty of space to spread out.

TEXT: LEE STEELE

PHOTOS: CARLOS ROSADO VAN DER GRACHT

Two doors from my house on the eastern edge of the historic center, there is a good-size residential property that had once contained a messy auto paint shop, and then a noisy, giant clandestine chicken coop. Then, the house was purchased by a much more agreeable neighbor.

A year after completing construction, during which my curiosity became almost unbearable, North Carolina-based artist Randy Shull invited me in to see his new studio.

Most of the property is an enormous, mostly enclosed white space —a far cry from what was there before. It’s ample, I assume, for the large-scale multimedia pieces in which Randy specializes. In its pristine, unspattered state, it resembled an art gallery more than an artist’s studio. I asked a nosy-neighbor question to start our brief conversation:

Q: It’s a visual jolt when you come inside. Are you planning to change the facade or is that how it is?

A: I’m won’t do anything for a while. Maybe in a couple of years.

Q: Do you always work on multiple pieces at once?

A: Yeah. This is right where I want to be, where there’s a lot of work happening at the same time and they all start talking to each other.

RANDY SHULL'S STUDIO IS A BLANK CANVAS IN ITSELF

CARLOS ROSADO VAN DER GRACHT

Q: What is your process to get to this point? You start with nothing and you build it up?

A: In this case, I did. Now that the floor is so big I can lay a lot of stuff out. I’m using hammocks as the body of the work. A hammock is the canvas. I lay it on the floor, and then I paint. Right now I have (pointing) this one I painted this morning. Two, three that I painted today, and I’m starting to work a little bit on it where I’m working on parts. It’s a little bit different than where I was a couple of weeks ago.

Q: So it’s part of your process to work on multiple projects at once. A: Yeah, but it takes a lot of energy to get to this place where you have this thing going. Once you’re there, it’s hard to let go. 

RANDY SHULL'S ART STUDIO IS CHRISTENED WITH A PARTY.

LEE STEELE

EARLY ON IN THE PROJECT.

LEE STEELE