Seth Randal
About
Los Angeles based painter Seth Randal was born in New York, but spent a good portion of his childhood growing up in London receiving the benefits of a traditional, British secondary education. In his teens he thought be would like to become a jeweler and enrolled in London Polytechnic studying goldsmithing and jewelry design. To this day one of the greatest artistic influences in his life is Rene Lalique, not so much for his glass work but his mastery of jewelry design and the use of glass, gemstones and precious metals. His second major artistic influence was Louis Comfort Tiffany for his sense of design but primarily for his use of colour. He moved back to the United States when he was 20 and settled in New York City where eventually he enrolled in The Parsons School of Design. Originally he was in the interior design programme until, in his second year he took an elective class in glassblowing, a class that changed his life forever. He changed his major to fine arts and graduated in 1988 with a degree in fine arts and immediately embarked on a 30 year career as a sculptor working primarily in contemporary glass castings and metal work. His work can be found in over 20 major museum collections around the world including The LA County Museum of Art, The Boston Museum of Fine Arts, The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, The Seattle Art Museum and many others.
He started painting earnest in 2003 when he began working as an independent designer for the Parisian based glassware company Daum Cristal, the London based luxury item store Asprey and Tiffany & Co. in New York. Those were the days before Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator and designers relied on hand illustrated presentation boards. He has designed high end jewelry, glassware, table ware and women’s fashion accessories. In 2015 he closed down his sculpture studio primarily due to a downturn in his particular market and a desire to move on in different directions and now concentrates on his painting.
“If I had only 4 words for an artist statement I would use: Colour, Light, Movement and Drama.”