Resurrected Dreams: Cowboys, Aliens & Espionage, an exhibition of new works by Randall Reid, will be on display May 10 - June 15 at William Campbell Contemporary Art. An opening reception will be held Friday, May 10, 6:00-8:00 p.m. The show will contain nearly four dozen smaller-scale graphic collage pieces, framed in steel and exploring popular twentieth-century themes of the Old West, science fiction, and espionage.

Resurrected Dreams is the first body of Reid's work so tightly focused on specific themes. Largely informed by personal interest in old television series, movies, and 1960s sci-fi, the new pieces explore our collective pop-cultural history, even as Reid contemporizes and elevates it. He has cropped, painted, and otherwise manipulated found graphics to highlight theme and pictorial quality, along with structural elements, color balance, and texture. Of the new work, Reid comments, "I feel I am arranging layers, passages, ambiguous realities, and figurative elements, which can become narrative anthologies."

Nearly two inches thick, each piece incorporates stepped framing to create a downward progression that leads the eye directly into the subject matter. The rusticated, often colorful border becomes part of the overall piece, while also contextualizing the imagery. With these frames, Reid establishes a literal and metaphorical window, which he describes as a "portal of time." Here, history meets the present, as images and ideas traverse time to coalesce within a contemporary framework. Rich patinas and antiqued surfaces recall the past, ostensibly casting the pieces as would-be archeological treasures. Visually, the framing also acts as a contemplative buffer that bridges the area between the picture plane and the viewer's space.

Resurrected Dreams will also feature several mini-installations of antique toys that echo the subject matter of the hanging works, including model stagecoaches and riders on horseback, plastic guns, alien figurines, espionage gadgets, and a spy book. Three-dimensional representations of Reid's pop-cultural exploration, the installations will serve to establish yet another dialogue between past and present, also blurring the line between antique object and work of art.

Reid's current body of work presents a true renascence of themes-a direct visual and historic connection to the past, and an exploration of how that past feeds the present and future. Not simply revisiting history, the artist rediscovers, redirects, repurposes, and reconnects with it on physical, visual, and emotional levels. In this vein, he transforms straightforward visual remnants of history into highly tactile representations of a time-centered arc.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
A professional artist for more than three decades, Randall Reid has exhibited work in dozens of museums, galleries, and invitational shows across Texas and the United States. Local and regional venues include those in Abilene, Austin, Dallas, Fort Worth, Galveston, Houston, Lubbock, San Antonio, and San Marcos, among others. National exhibitions include those in New York City, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Little Rock, New Orleans, New York State, and Santa Fe, to name a few. Notable juried shows include the Delta Exhibition at the Arkansas Art Center in Little Rock, the Texas National at Stephen F. Austin State University, the Valdosta National at Georgia's Valdosta State University, and the Bradley National Print & Drawing Exhibition at Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois.

Reid's work appears in various corporate and public collections, including those of the Raymond James Financial Corporation; GTE; Haynes and Boone, LLP; NFR Energy; Price Waterhouse, Dallas; Cedar Park Regional Medical Center; the Arkansas Art Center; the Austin Museum of Art; Texas State University at San Marcos; the Longview Art Museum; Texas Tech University; and New Orleans Public Service, among others. Books featuring his work include Randall Reid: Full Circle; Randall Reid: Layers of Perception; Recontextualized: Ordered Layers; and Beyond Surface.

Randall Reid received his MFA from Texas Tech University, and a BFA from Louisiana Tech University. He currently teaches at Texas State University, San Marcos, where has been a professor of art and design since 1988.