Russell Oliver's Page

Website

www.russelloliver.co.uk

Relationship status

single

College / University

University of the West of England

Program

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

The centre of the artworld is

nowhere and everywhere

My artreview.com URL:
http://www.artreview.com/profile/RussellOliver
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