Russell Oliver's Page

Website

http://www.russelloliver.co.uk

Relationship status

single

College / University

University of the West of England

Program / Degree

Illustration

Member type

Artist

If you're an artist, what kind of art do you make?

Painting

About my artwork

I select and collect different kinds of ephemera as a starting point in the process of making work. My intention is to give these images a second existence as the inspirational and integral part of a new image.

In the case of my using cinema quad posters - these were conceived of, designed and produced for the single purpose of promoting a film on its original release and while the film enjoys its short run in cinemas - they give me the restrictive parameters of their identity, which I must both overcome and utilise (I never start with a blank canvas).

The posters at 30”x 40” are placed within a larger canvas, and the surface is worked and re-worked in a range of media and technique. Much of the poster becomes undetectable in the canvas. Any element of the poster deemed undesirable is ‘painted out’; leaving only elements of figures and letters selected from the title, which become a new title.

The human elements are then disfigured, distorted, distressed, obscured and disguised by a unique mask.

Although I am clearly guilty of iconoclasm, I do not consider myself an iconoclast (creating maniacal imagery redolent of cultural vandalism) and I am in no way apposed to image worship.

The intention is to produce works that subsume redundant images in that they have
out-lived their purpose.

Artists I like

Jean-Michael Basquait, Keith Haring, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Daniel Richter, Mark Bradford, Joyce Pensato, Shane Bradford, Albert Oehlen, John Stazaker, Christopher Wool,

Interests

Culture

Centre of the artworld:

nowhere and everywhere