Artist, lecturer, poet and athlete, Randy Abubakar Bentinck’s work surrounds realistic and abstract with him dabbling in a bit of surreal art. And just recently his collection of poems Seduced, was acclaimed Best Seller in Amazon’s Caribbean and Latin American Poetry category.
Randy, who hails from Belladrum, West Coast Berbice, found himself drawn to art from a rather young age. He was always fascinated with literature, but art was his first love. According the artist he wrote art twice at the CXC level securing a grade three. Not satisfied he decided to write it a second time around, again resulting in a grade three.
Randy always considered his work to be impressive and though his results said differently, he was not discouraged. He took his art teacher, Brian Elcock’s advice and applied to E R Burrowes School of Art. Before his four years at the art school were up, Randy was already producing outstanding work. He majored in painting and minored in sculpting. His last assigned piece was called the major task where artists are required to create a piece made from both the areas they would have minored and majored in. To prepare for this piece, Randy did some research on the work of three artists – Georgia O’Keefe (American) and Aubrey Williams and Dudley Charles (both Guyanese). “My major task was titled ‘The Coloured Vision – The Ackee Series’. I looked at it from the standpoint of studying shape and form and colour. I would have studied the work of [the above-mentioned artists] in the run up to making the piece,” Randy said.