Part of Everything
February 6th - March 9th 2008
The Big Happy, 2008, oil on canvas, 80 x 96 inches
The show, Part of Everything, is a series of paintings and drawings, in addition to two small three-dimensional works. Through thickly layered oil paintings and patterned graphite drawings, Russell’Äôs current work explores his perception of and connection with the natural world. The artist is interested in a spirituality connected to the cycles of nature, an infinitely complex yet entirely tangible world. He looks at the earth and cosmos as a source of mysticism, purpose, and wholeness that is within the realms of science rather than the supernatural. Constantly experimenting and editing while he works, the artist examines alternative outdoor lifestyles which appropriate ideas from indigenous cultures and infuse them with an emerging consciousness of ecology.
Russell struggles to embrace a tradition of nature-based spirituality while recognizing the incongruity of his generation appropriating native beliefs, a generation with high-tech gear and ample leisure time for quests into the remaining wilderness on our planet. His images of wilderness and the sublime communicate reverence for nature, tempered by notions of disconnection and disillusionment. While the majority of Christopher Russell's pieces are landscapes, they are not as much about reproducing places he has seen, as they are about a process of searching and reflecting.
artist’Äôs website: www.chrisrussellart.com