NEW ORLEANS, LA.- For the past 20 years, North Carolina artist Randy Shull has steadily transformed the craft of furniture making in American art. With his evolving work—which also includes landscape design, painting and architecture—Shull continues to push the limits of function and design.

“Randy Shull: Crossing Boundaries,” a mid-career retrospective of his work featuring furniture and mixed media, will be on view at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, through June 4, 2009.

This exhibition will be the first major show of studio furniture at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.

“Randy Shull is an innovator, building upon longstanding traditions of craft,” says Ogden Director J. Richard Gruber. “He, along with Wendell Castle and other pioneering artists, has helped lead the field in transforming furniture design into an art.”

In 1986, Shull received his bachelor of fine arts degree from Rochester Institute of Technology. He was a resident at Penland School of Crafts in 1987, and in 1992 he was an artist in residence at Altos de Chavon, Dominican Republic. Since then, the development of his artistic style has permitted him to explore the changing boundaries of craft and design. Shull’s acclaimed furniture designs are evidence of his love for innovation. One step ahead, he has ventured past crafting art for the home and onto revamping its milieu. As Shull proclaimed, “In my life, in my work and in my travels I like the excitement of crossing boundaries.”

Shull’s work has been included in a number of distinguished museum collections, including the Brooklyn Museum, the High Museum, the Renwick Museum of American Art, the Mint Museum of Craft & Design, Racine Museum of Art, the Gregg Museum of Art & Design, the Museum of Art and Design, and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.

In the past decade Shull has had four one-person exhibitions in New York, as well as a show at the San Francisco Museum of Craft and Design, and has received accolades for his work. He has studios in Merida, Mexico and Asheville, N.C., where he also serves on the board of the Asheville Art Museum.

“Randy Shull: Crossing Boundaries,” was organized by the Gregg Museum of Art & Design at North Carolina State University/Raleigh.