Jill Randall Lancashire, United Kingdom
I am a sculptor and printmaker based in Rossendale, Lancashire, UK, and exhibit my work nationally and internationally. I am a Member of The Royal Society of Sculptors and the European Sculpture Network. I recently exhibited work in the Venice Biennale (2019) in the PAPER Pavilion, Palazzo Mora, and the sculpture survey show ‘No Particular Place to Go’, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester.
I am a sculptor working primarily with steel and other metals, using welding and forging, with a commitment to making and materiality. I push materials to limits, and am interested in processes of thinking through making, sometimes combining disparate materials to create a new thought, sometimes involving the recycling of materials invested with history and narrative through their past use, I am interested in the creativity of destructive or deconstruction processes, frequently linked to my residencies in factories and industrial environments, and using the unique chemistry and ecology of post-industrial sites to create new work. My work reveals the sublime and beautiful, the poetic and resonant in bleak and unpromising places, and often involves making work with and from post-industrial, or ‘spoiled’ environments. I have worked with post-mining sites in the UK, Australia and Mexico, responding to their unique ecology and chemistry, exploring the environment, and ithe botany of rare plants colonising these landscapes. I have created work ‘in residence’ on site, including abandoned underground mines, harnessing the materials and chemistry of the post-industrial landscape to create prints and drawings. I am interested in the idea of an ‘alternative beauty’ and ‘alternative nature’ drawn from overlooked, abject and strange landscapes and places.
