Louis K. Meisel Gallery is pleased to feature the work of the hyperrealist sculptor Randall Rosenthal. Mimicking utilitarian items, Rosenthal’s highly realistic wooden sculptures are designed to deceive viewers and elicit surprise. This exhibition highlights a cross-section of the artist’s oeuvre, featuring some of his most sought works, including selected notebooks, magazines, and an envelope of money.

Rosenthal’s sculptures elevate everyday items that one finds on a desk or a kitchen tabletop: paper media, cardboard boxes, and books. For the artist, it is the ubiquitousness of these paper objects that makes their reproduction ironic, amusing, and disguisable. While the reproduction of everyday objects harks back to the tradition of the Dutch masters, Rosenthal’s sculptures are less about creating didactic versions of the original objects he imitates and are more focused on the act of illusion. As Rosenthal has stated:

It’s a game that I play with the viewer. I can take a sculpture to a place that distorts your perception. My illusion is such that your eye and your brain cannot figure out quickly.

To create these works, Rosenthal uses a reductive process. He painstakingly carves his works from a single block of pine, relying primarily on hand tools and devices of his own creation; he then faithfully renders the surface in acrylic and ink. When choosing his subjects, Rosenthal frequently looks to subjects that reference present-day cultural events. While at times playful, his works offer social commentary and pose questions about humans’ perception of reality, a topic that has become highly relevant as the world grapples with rapid development of artificial intelligence technology.