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Bruce Russell

Born: 1946. Nationality: British.

Bruce Russell studied at the Chelsea School of Art in the 1960s.

He is regarded as a leading practitioner and curator with a life-long dedication to abstract painting. In 1987 he was appointed Professor of Fine Art at Kingston University, London (now Emeritus Professor). He was formerly the founder-director of the University Gallery, Newcastle-on-Tyne.

His work deals with a moving back and forth between appearances and the pure matter of paint. Although he evades the formalist constraints of abstraction, his practice clearly retains a strong sense of formal control. A Russell painting can be read simultaneously as a collection of things, atmospheres and occurrences, on one hand, and different ways of applying paint, on the other. Styles reminiscent of Japanese prints and the comic book can be seen in his use of intensely high colour contrasts and fine line drawing.

Gallowgate X
Gallowgate IV