Photographs of Random Beauty

This series began when I was collecting cardboard from dumpsters and was struck by the beauty of random scrapes, splatters, spills and weathering that adorned these metal containers, inside and out. What occurred to me was that this beauty exists without any intent whatever to create it. It exists solely through the interdependence of various day-to-day activities and accidents that leave their marks.
It is “group art” in that it is the result of many events over time involving many different people and their machines. But the “group” had absolutely no intention of “making art.” And that, it seems, is the beauty of it.

Once we stop rejecting the world, the world begins to pounce on us. Symbolism is imposed on us. Realizations and perceptions of all kinds of realities begin to take shape. There is symbolism right and left and front and back.

We no longer regard a work of art as a gimmick or as confirmation, it is simply expression— not even self-expression, just expression. We could safely say that there is such a thing as unconditional expression that does not come from self or other. It manifests out of nowhere like mushrooms in a meadow, like hailstones, like thundershowers.

—Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche

The Random Beauty photographs inform my painting and construction/sculpture. I regard them as invaluable teachers.

—Carol Hoy, 2010

for more information please contact carol@carolhoy.com