Moray Art Centre founder Randy Klinger exhibiting own artwork at Nairn Community and Arts Centre

A MORAY artist has started a month long exhibition at Nairn Community and Arts Centre.

Randy Klinger from New York has lived in Moray for the past 30 years, has exhibited across the UK, USA, Europe and Japan and his work recently came second in the Derwent Art Prize, London and Paris.

The founder of the Moray Art Centre at Findhorn studied at The Cooper Union, New York City.

He said: “My mentors then were senior art critic at the NY Times, Dore Ashton, and art historian Professor Sir Ernst Gombrich. Now my mentors include Matteo Ceriana (ex-Dir. Pitti Palace, Florence) and art historian at Harvard University, Joseph Koerner.”

Since starting Moray Art Centre Randy has directed and taught, working with The British Museum, The Courtauld and National Galleries of Scotland to create historical exhibitions.

He said: “My sole aim is to create beauty that is relevant to our time, to evoke presence through form, and to create uplifting visual poetry. Every day I draw, and every day I study art history. When I was a boy of seven, I had an overwhelming experience of beauty - felt physically. It happened when I was home alone, in the drab suburbs of New York, and saw the modern dance of Martha Graham on the telly - like an electric charge, from my feet to my head, I experienced an aesthetic ecstasy. Since that day I make pictures with a desire to create images that also might have this power, leaving the viewer speechless - art as the upliftment of the psyche. In this exhibition I will show artworks from the past three years, with two themes: Self Portraits: “Before I Die”. My intention with these drawings is to find adventure, curiosity, attraction and beauty in myself and to share this inspiration with others, that they might also see themselves, through this ‘newly restored mirror’; Person in a Room Series. Influenced by Vermeer.” For more information visit www.randyklinger.com.