Randy Kochis
by Heidi Pilypas

Randy Kochis was born in Hawaii to parents Steve and Elizabeth Kochis. He was the middle child of older sister Jeri and younger sister Michelle whom he got on well with. At age 2, Randy and his family moved to Ohio, where they lived in a small, quiet town of about 20,000 people. The adventurous youth grew up there where he enjoyed many outdoor activities including BMX biking, motocross, running, and hiking. His high school years were filled of fond memories of snow, sports, shenanigans and his close friendships.

He didn’t dream of being an artist, in fact he was never really interested by it. He had one art class in Junior High school, but he didn’t continue it into High school or College. Growing up he first wanted to be an air force pilot, then a chemistry or engineering researcher, but wouldn’t discover what he really wanted to do until later. He held many jobs including paperboy, dishwasher, fry cook, pizza boy, Navy aircrewman, PC technician, web programmer, and even ran his own small Internet Business.

In 1995, Kochis graduated from San Diego State University with a degree in Business information Systems. Before this he had spent 3 years doing math and science classes for an Electrical Engineering degree, where he gained some background in fractals (highly complex mathematical digitized images).

In 1997, he met his wife Magaly at the University, whom he married 3 years later. It was his wife who discovered his artistic talents. In his spare time, Randy made images on his computer, a hobby that started as patterns he made for his desktop wallpaper. His wife asked him what he planned to do with them, and encouraged him to do something with his images. It took a while for Randy to realize that what he was doing was actually art, and that he was an artist – not just someone who made "funny-looking patterns" on his computer.

His style of art is called digital abstract. In it he tries to "utilize color, light, and texture to create visually stimulating abstract images that have meaning to each individual viewer or person". His influences are aspects and images from the world, and fractals from mathematics. He has found when people look at his art they each see something different depending on their life experiences. He admires other artist’s work, although he couldn’t tell you whom. Rather than getting into other people’s work, he just likes creating his own.

He creates images using Adobe Photoshop on his computer. He starts with a blank page, then with the image in his head, he begins drawing in the shapes and lines with different colors, sized brushes, and textures. He uses filtering tools over this to help mix and blend colors. He looks for a part that stands out – whether it be a color, texture, or pattern, then he keeps working on it using the image cropping, adding colors, lighting effects, and filter tools until it resembles something he considers balanced and interesting. If he achieves what he wants he saves it and its finished. On other occasions it takes 1-2 weeks to complete where he tries out different and new ways to apply colors and textures. When he has finished all of this, he shows his wife and gets her opinion.

In the last four years Randy has entered his work into various art shows, coffee shops, and small galleries. He considers one of his greatest achievements to be "creating some really great art" and his efforts in getting it out into the public’s eye.

He currently lives in the Bay area of California, just outside of San Francisco, with his wife, 2 cats Stinkers and Suki, and parakeet Beaks. He works in Berkeley and his wife in San Francisco. He does his art part-time, and if he can work it out would some day like to do it full-time. He does all his art at home on his computer, which he constantly needs upgraded to support his images. He sells his work at shows and on his website. He prints out the images for display in shows and in his living room. His printer can print images as large as 13x19 inches, and for larger images he takes them to a print shop.