| Russell Young's career began twenty years ago as a celebrity photographer. One of his first assignments was photographing pop star George Michael for cover of the album Faith. That job established Russell's talent, leading to shoots for Morrissey, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and many more. His command of the camera segued into music video direction, resulting in over 100 videos for MTV Ten years into his career Young began painting, but his work remained private until 2003. Young showed his first series of screen prints entitled PIG, mug shots of film and music icons, at Don O'Melveny Gallery, Los Angeles. The show sold out Russell Young has risen to become one of the most collected and sought after artists of our time.
Celebrities and collectors from the most discriminating to the novice have added Russell's works to their collections. His larger than life screen print images from history and popular culture are compelling, daunting and undeniable "My work is sort of soundtrack to my life, loves, experiences and influences. My method of working is to search, destroy and create. The images of this series have been collected from newspaper clippings, eBay, long correspondence with police departments throughout the world or even given by celebrities themselves The idea to create "anti celebrity" portraits was probably a reaction to my former career. However, they turned out to be even more beautiful and iconic. There is undeniably an attitude that is very real, in your face, a beauty that is hard to ignore. My art is a sort of soundtrack to my life, loves, experiences and influences. These would be my heroes that are missing from art history. |
