Julia Randall: Tongue, Mouth & Art

We see the mouth everyday. We touch and taste and kiss and bite and speak on a regular basis and yet we have not taken into an account how fascinating the mouth really is. Julia Randall, an artist from the New York area, has taken this body part to another level. By creating pieces to draw attention to the mouth in general, Randall has brought new light to the piece of the body that we use on a daily. The artist explores the critical site in which we use to eat and smile and play and has shown the ferocious and tender side of this intimate morsel we call the mouth.

Although Randall clearly thrives in the world of fantasy, she uses observation-based drawings to create images that are surreal. By taking a simple childhood candy and turning it into an entire exhibit called “Blown,” this artist draws the viewer in and makes them think twice about the seductiveness of a piece of used bubble gum. “The gum’s viscous texture has the same strange sex appeal as the saliva and moist lips in her other work,” stated the website hifructose. Randall doesn’t stop there; drawing images of a tongue slightly sticking out or a set of voluptuous lips being licked, she makes you step back and wonder, for just a bit, what her true intentions were when she made the pieces of “Lick Line.” A series, which consist of disembodied mouths floating in space and tongues protruding, beckon the viewer to come closer. “A master of recreating textures with her set of color pencils, Julia Randall uses photorealistic drawing techniques to create surreal works that use subtle suggestions to cultivate a sensual mood,” according to hifructose. We see the mouth and tongue all the time, yet Randall suggests that they are extremely intimate. And who are we to argue?

With her love of drawing, Randall uses her seductive technique of incorporating mouths and tongues to subtly challenge the viewer’s assumption of desire. Choosing to particularly focus on the mouth, tongue, lips, and teeth against a plain background, she is forcing the viewer to fixate on the objects just like we would something equally delicate and perplexing to nature. “I craft images that are simultaneously erotic and repulsive, natural and artificial,” said the artist who doesn’t mind challenging sexuality with her art.

Randall, who has been drawing for quite some time now, has been featured in solo exhibitions around the world including a few at the Jeff Bailey Gallery in New York City and at Esa Jaske Gallery in Sydney, Australia. Her drawings have also been included in numerous group exhibitions, most recently at the Tang Museum in Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs, NY. Although, she has received a few fellowships including one from the New York Foundation for the Arts and  she has had multiple residencies at the Cite Internationale des Arts in Paris, France, this artist still gets a kick out of making viewers squirm a little with the uneasy topic of fetishes. “I am in love with drawing, and I use my seductive technique to humorously take aim at the way sexuality and nature are fetishized,” said Randall.

-Anjelica Duggins