Born in 1944 and raised in Chicago, John Randle received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1968 and taught art in high school for 31 years in suburban Chicago. He also received an MA degree in Interdisciplinary Arts from Columbia College in 1989. He has been retired for 10 years and enjoys travel and working for small theater companies. He was resident scenic designer for the NeoFuturists for 5 years and created two shows of drawings and paintings for their productions of "Alice" and "The Last Five Minutes of the Complete Works of Henrik Ibsen". He had a show of drawings and paintings this year at Touche'.
"My current work is based on my interest in bondage, and how many classic images and stories involve restraints. I have been involved in the bondage community in Chicago for many years, and am now the secretary for the Windy City Bondage Club. In April and May of this year, I had my first show of erotic images at Touche'. The drawings all involved male torsos with enigmatic tattoos, but I also included a set of three paintings, viewed as a triptych, of bound hands and feet against a night sky. When I finished the paintings, I was very pleased at the power they held for me, and how much enjoyment I had in painting them. This has lead me to create another set of triptychs, three sets in all, for a show at Chicago's Leather Archives Museum to open on October 23rd. The new paintings are similarly involved in bound body parts against expanses of sky, but I'm also trying to invoke other tales of classical myths like Icarus and Daedulus, Jupiter and Ganymede and Abraham and Isaac. I'm not intending direct illustrations, but merely hope to stir associations of restraint and eroticism in my mind and in the viewer."
About the LA&M and the G.A.G Contemporary Fetish Gallery
The Leather Archives & Museum is dedicated to the preservation of and access to fetish history and culture. Its eight exhibition spaces are open to the public Thursday and Friday 11a to 7p and Saturday and Sunday 11a to 5p. The G.A.G. Contemporary Fetish Gallery at the LA&M features works by renowned and emerging fetish artists from around the world. Curator S.I.R. assembles erotic exhibitions that entice and inspire all patrons from hardcore fetish enthusiasts to the tourist voyeur.
Scott Ian Ray (S.I.R)
Scott Ian Ray (S.I.R),
Curator and local performance artist, Scott Ian Ray (S.I.R), joins the ranks of the Leather Archives and Museum (LA&M) as an addition to the curatorial team and runs the G.A.G. Contemporary Fetish Gallery, housed with-in. A recent graduate of The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, S.I.R brings an edgy grassroots publicity awareness to the space. While looking for works and show ideas that expand and celebrate the relics, individuals, and memories of the “Leather” community, IML, and inspired fetishists all over the globe.
Originally from South Texas, S.I.R moved to Chicago in 2004 to attend school and was lucky enough to catch the LA&M mortgage burning and the structured world of the “Leather” scene. He has a Masters in Performance Practice, is holding down a Junior Executive Producer position at Gorilla Tango Theatre in Wicker Park, and has recently performed at the Bijou and Cobra Lounge.
Artists, like the rest of humanity, are like little gods. They create objects from thin air. Choosing the materials, selecting the medium, caressing their image into reality and into form, each step of the journey the artist is making choices both consciously and subconsciously bringing to life that which they see in their mind's eye. Once the object is complete, the artist then looses control of that image as it becomes unleashed into the larger world and interacted with by a wider audience. What happens when we relinquish that control during the creation process and become mere tools for another's vision? Does the integrity of the work suffer? Are we frustrated by a lack of command over what the art will look like? It's hard enough for an artist to let a piece go after completion much like sending a child away to school for the first day. This show is an exercise in letting go of that control from the beginning.
After getting to know each other and with a burgeoning dominant/submissive relationship unfolding, I consented to be told what images to work on by Sir Dan Perry of Dallas. Having knowledge of my artistic style and craft, he would provide the inspiration by either a phrase or an actual photo to work from and I would set out to make it in my own unique way. After the piece was finished there would be a presentation of the piece to Sir much like a cat brings a dead bird in its mouth to its owner for approval. It all started out as an experiment but quickly developed into its own series: Under Orders.
Unlike most understood feminist notions of “beauty” being pushed onto women, which in the curator’s opinion actually reaffirms the old notion of what a woman’s place was. Kate Tastrophe, who speaks of her images as if they where real ladies, works toward contemporary theories of 3rd wave feminism and shows that this newly found sexually liberated woman, is nothing new. The images show women who use and accentuate their “assist,” and in doing so take hold of Beauty and make it their servant.
These ladies want to be looked at. They want to be studied. They want to inspire those dirty little thoughts. And it’s their rendering of “Beauty” that grants them the power in that moment.
_ask Oct 2008 - Jan 2009
_ask, a mixed medium exhibition and fashion show celebrates the mask and its ability to transform its wearer into dual persona of subject/object.
_ask reviews the latest in fetish inspired masks and works by local, national and international artist and producers. The show will explore the mask as an adornment through which the wearer alters or amplifies an aspect of themselves that is normally out of reach due to social attitudes of the gaze. With the adoption of the mask, the wearer has the allowance to suppress themselves and become the mask, which in itself is a fetish.
However, if the mask is in the hands of a dominate, the persona of the wearer becomes an object of submission and the mask a removal of humanity.
In the end, allowing the mask to become a signifier through which the dominant can forgo the “ask” of boundary politics.
YES, the Soul of a Sexual Outlaw Apr 2008 - Oct 2008
In “Leather” the design of role-play, subjectivity and symbolism plays a fundamental position in the acquisition of pleasure. Through this a normalized routine of actions and posturing have come about and with the efforts of so many strong-minded individuals in the “Leather Community” relics have been preserved and are now part of normalized society. i.e. The Leather Achieves. This “Old Guard” mentality still permeates the understanding of the framed ideal of what “Leather” is by continually presenting what it was as homage, celebration, or commercial identity. This no doubt offers a pathway to sexual identification and an easily definable trajectory of association. The aim of this show is to expand those definitions of “Leather” into other extremes through “Queer” mindedness and negate the normally leather clad/rope bound body.
Lochai, rope artist * photographer May 2007 - Nov 2007
I became interested in photography as a child, playing with my uncle's cameras whenever I visited him. I also used to make pinhole cameras as a grade school student & then started making them with my own students when I was an art teacher.
I feel the best stories to tell come from the heart and everyone has something hidden that is bursting to come out. I feel I can touch something within each person who views my work. For me, I see the real person when I create my fetish images. The real person comes out thru their alter ego.
Since I am a lifestyle player, when I shoot I see fetish from the inside & try to convey the emotions as well as the visuals.
I tied up my first "girlfriend" when I was six on the school bus and from that moment on I knew I was "different". I have been a student and educator of BDSM including but not limited to age play, pony play, corporal, discipline, pain for pleasure play as well as a kinbaku artist (Japanese bondage). I consider myself a top and some consider me their dominant.
The Leather Archives & Museum is located at 6418 N.
Greenview Ave. Just 2 doors north of the corner of Devon Ave. & Greenview Ave.
We are nextdoor to the Citgo gas station @ Devon and Greenview. The closest
major intersection is Clark St. & Devon Ave. Greenview is 2 blocks east of
Clark St.
Via Public Transportation
CTA Bus #s 36-Broadway, 151-Sheridan and 155-Devon stop at
the corner of Devon and Greenview.
CTA Red Line – Loyola street stop. About a 10 minute walk
to the LA&M, or board the #155-Devon bus westbound at the Loyola stop. Walking
: Out of the El station, walk south (under the L tracks) on Sheridan Road. At
the second stoplight, Devon Ave., turn right. Walk about 6 blocks to Greenview
Ave. Turn right at the corner of Devon and Greenview.
Via Car
From the loop or boystown : Get onto Lake Shore Drive
northbound. Take Lake Shore Drive until it ends at Sheridan Rd. Turn right
onto Sheridan, so you'll be heading north. Sheridan will curve to the left.
Stay in the left lane, as Sheridan Road becomes Devon Ave. Continue west for 6
blocks to Greenview Ave. Parking is available on the street.
From the north or west : Take I-294 or I-94 to Touhy Ave.
Take Touhy Ave. east to Western Avenue. Go right on Western to Devon Ave. Go
left on Devon Ave. to Greenview Ave. Turn left on Greenview Ave. Parking is
available on the street.
Mapquest results for the Leather Archives & Museum in Chicago, IL.
"Restraint" October 23, through April 15, 2010
Scott Ian Ray (S.I.R)
"Under Orders"
Beauties Service
_ask
YES, the Soul of a Sexual Outlaw
Lochai, rope artist * photographer