Math major Morgan Randall ’16 is taking on the world with two hands, a keen eye, and a giant heart. While his math studies have honed his capacity for accuracy, his curiosity and concern for others inspire him to represent many faces, interests, and ideas in drawings, video games, and comic books.
Morgan Randall ’16 draws with both hands.
Recently Randall, who literally draws with both hands, decided to make portraits of every student in International House, his campus home. Nearly 600 portraits later, he created a video about his effort and won a contest through Big Ideas@Berkeley, a program that supports innovative, high-impact student projects. He hopes to use the prize money to teach art and make murals with cancer patients at an oncology hospital in Vietnam.
Randall’s ambidextrousness enables him to do one portrait in three minutes, but his interest in the international cohort at I-House — not to mention a desire to practice German, Japanese, and Korean — often lead to long conversations, new friendships, and treats!
“I’ve come to love Lithuanian chocolate and Colombian coffee-caramels …Turkish delights and Singaporean hot chocolate mix,” he says. “But even nicer than the food are the friendships— sometimes a total stranger becomes my close friend.”
When not hanging out at I-House, Randall can be found on Sproul Plaza, making portraits for $3 a pop. He has also worked on video games for differently-abled players and created a comic book for a research project on black women superheroes. While studying math is helping Randall develop an eye for detail, he is using art to share his skills with others and create a vision of a fun, inclusive world
One of Randall's portraits of Alex from the United States and Youngshin from Korea.
One of Randall's portraits of Rebeka from Madagascar.
