Furniture that becomes art

RALEIGH -- In Randy Shull's hands, wood ravaged by hurricanes gets transformed into masklike forms and primitive implements. Birch plywood, carved into monumental forms, becomes furniture that traverses the boundaries of sculpture and painting. Extending his artistic practice beyond creating objects for the home, Shull also injects his style into the redesign and refurbishment of entire home environments.

With the midcareer retrospective "Randy Shull: Crossing Boundaries," the Gregg Museum of Art and Design pays homage to the multifaceted Asheville-based artist, who has strong ties to the Penland School of Crafts and an ever-growing national reputation.

The show, curated by Suzanne Baizerman, is refreshingly spare, telling its story in a simple linear fashion that clearly traces a form vocabulary from Shull's beginnings to the current day.

A hall table from the 1980s, with intricate joinery and precise geometric lines, states a distinctive style while allowing its fine woods to remain the focus of the piece. Soon, Shull would unlearn his exacting training to focus on a grouping of objects fabricated from Hurricane Hugo detritus. Resulting forms evoked African masks and folk art, with carved surfaces contrasting splintered shards. These were the "Implement" series, represented at the Gregg in a set of seven.

"South Cabinet" (1992) is dramatically positioned as a midpoint in the gallery space. This wide-based cabinet, painted a hot orange-red, incorporates Shull's signature sanded paint layers and found objects in the form of rubber lettering that spells the word "South" backward and forward. The cabinet, 7 feet tall, evokes a monumental figure capped by a ragged shock of "hair" -- actually another piece of hurricane-treated wood. Now in the collection of the Brooklyn Museum of Art, the piece marks a turning point, announcing Shull's dedication to works of increasing scale.

Shull's 1992 residency in the Dominican Republic led to a heightening of his already bold palette and a resurgence of interest in folk carving. The effects are seen in "Cobalt Dream," a six-foot clock inspired by his girlfriend's yoga pose, and a dramatic dining room suite with chairs whimsically carved with brightly colored foods along their backs.

Shull's most recent works are large paintings on wooden panels with matching benches that extend the paintings into the viewer's space. "Large Reflection" (2006), which features minimalist stripes cut into wood by planers, is a hybrid of painting, sculpture and furniture that confronts notions of functionality.

Again, a sanded surface abrades paint edges and reveals evidence of color strata below. The stripes continue, aligned on the bench below, to force the viewer to confront the painting and its undeniable challenge: Dare we sit on such a bench?

Shull's even more recent attention to whole environments is represented in photographs of his own house and the one he designed for a friend, Andrew Glasgow. With a palette of fresh, lively colors, his sensitivity to materials and his love of surprise, he is clearly a gifted designer.

Painted accents, unusually placed windows that frame carefully chosen vistas, and rooms peppered with furniture of his own design -- all contribute to highly inventive and inviting spaces. Travels in the East have imparted a palpable Asian flavor to his sensibility.

A fully illustrated catalog provides a thorough biography and essay by curator Baizerman, who tells us that Shull's 1989 return to Penland "provided the climate where he could take risks, gain confidence, and contemplate an identity as an artist (not to mention enjoy the robust social life of a young bachelor)." Glasgow and Matthew Hebert also contribute to the catalog.

"Crossing Boundaries" is a pleasant look into the mind of a craftsman whose ever-evolving work stretches expected parameters of his form. Shull's wide appeal is understandable.