Have you ever looked at a painting and the first thing you do is smile? That is my response to the original artwork of Randy Stevens, a satiric artist from Ma. Her graphic style is giddy, caricatural and elliptic, using mixed media taking her subjects from the cocktail lounge that she worked at as a young artist. Indeed she spent many hours in close quarters with women who were overdressed, overpainted and overexcited. The men who escort them don’t go unnoticed either. A connoisseur of swanky fur coats, luminescent purses and black satin shoes, she matches the medium to the matter when faced with the phenomena of this sort using pastel glitter and nail polish in her pieces.

The subjects in her paintings are satirized, and of course make a mock of traditional canons of sobriety. Yet the observations are powered not by malice, but an affectionate glee. Nor does the cheeky, summary off beat character of the drawing derive from an esthetic of subversion. What Randy Stevens wants is to restore to drawing the corner cutting immediacy that it had when first Toulouse-Lautrec and later the young Edouard Vuillard used distortion and ellipses to make drawing “more real than real”.

I have several this piece which is fairly large (51″w x 44.5″h) and several other Randy Stevens pieces on consignment and if interested, do contact me to add one of her pieces to your collection. I guarantee they will make you smile and add a dramatic note to your space.