Artist Profile
A Visual Journey
Randy McSwain, Sr. is a South Los Angeles visual artist specializing in realism and abstract art forms, largely using oil and acrylic on canvas and pencil on paper. He crafted his skills in his childhood with his mother and local artists and later at Compton Community College and Cal State San Bernardino. With encouragement from his artist mom, Audie Mae McMullan, and his aunt Dorothy Donegan, a noted jazz pianist, Randy has created hundreds of artworks using his own talents to develop the kinds of images he grew up admiring. Influenced by his mother's stories of her childhood friendship with slain civil rights activist Medgar Evers, Randy always wanted to make a difference in this world. His work largely portrays people and places of strength, passion, vision and spirit. It also heavily reflects his love for nature and gardening, mostly in his abstract art.
Life on canvas and paper
Alongside the positive pictures in his South LA community, Randy grew up in the 60s and 70s witnessing the growth of gangs, drugs and violence on the eastside of Los Angeles. Two neighborhood artists, Herb and Emmett, helped direct Randy from these activities, introducing him to sculpturing with wood and plastic. Around age 12, Randy worked with the artists, one Jewish, one African American, learning how to use tools like chisels, planes, lathes, and sanders to shape wood, and molds to craft plastic. The two artists taught him that there are no color lines when it comes to people and art.
Meanwhile, ceramics, drawing and wood classes at Carver Junior High and Jefferson High School helped nurture his love for the arts. Through painting and other fine arts classes at Compton Community College and Cal State San Bernardino, Randy further developed his natural ability to create life on canvas and paper. He credits two other artists, Mr. Franks at Jefferson and Mr. Slater at Compton, with being the first instructors to recognize and develop the professional skills that would take Randy's paintings and drawings to new levels.
God is holding my hand
His ceramics teacher at Jefferson, Mrs. Minamoto, and his painting teacher, Brad Spence at Cal State, were instrumental in teaching Randy to appreciate and explore a variety of techniques and art forms. Mr. Spence was particularly influential in encouraging Randy to venture from realism into abstracts.
He also credits God for his gifts. “I feel like God is holding my hand,” he says. “He’s leading and guiding me to do these things. It’s like inspiration and He’s putting it down for me.
“Some people say you’re the master painting the picture. I say God is the one who’s gifted me so He must be leading me to make a difference.”
