RUSSELL WEST | NEW FACADES
25 JANUARY - 13 FEBRUARY 2024
Russell West is a maverick colour-charter playing with our perceptions of paint. his paintings are unique for utilising paint skin as a medium.
Processing layers of paint skins into three dimensional graphs of colour, the artworks in this series intersect the fields of abstract expressionism, assemblage and contemporary pop all at once.
For West, paint and subject matter go hand in hand having witnessed firsthand, and lived withn the heavily built-up areas of Hong Kong and Mumbai. Previous works, such as those in the Neighbourhood and Soho series' have evoked the collage of surfaces waylaying a city, with multi-storey housing blocks clad in dripping banners and washing lines.
These new works abstract these surfaces even further.
Russell West
SMALL TOWN #1
Painting 50 x 50cm / mounted size 74 x 74cm
Layers of paint inside wooden mount
£5,500
Russell West
FAST FOOD #4
Painting 30 x 40cm / mounted size 44 x 54cm
Layers of paint inside wooden mount
£3,300
Russell West
FAST FOOD #2
Painting 30 x 40cm / mounted size 44 x 54cm
Layers of paint inside wooden mount
£3,300
Russell West
FAST FOOD #6
Painting 30 x 40cm / mounted size 44 x 54cm
Layers of paint inside wooden mount
£3,300
Russell West
SMALL TOWN #2
Painting 50 x 50cm / mounted size 74 x 74cm
Layers of paint inside wooden mount
£5,500
The NEW FACADES exhibition presents a series of paintings which take inspiration from a consumer-centric world, a world that is these days closer to home.
FAST FOOD looks at the relentless presentation of bright packaging in local supermarkets, serving up low- quality goods as a cylindrical feast for the eyes, whereas SMALL TOWN speaks to a rapidly shifting high street where each new shop front forgets the existence of the one which came before, leaving a sense of locality bleeding out from around the edges.
West describes his own feelings towards the ever-changing locale today:
“There’s nothing permanent about small towns anymore. One minute there’s a butcher and the next minute there’s someone plastering over it. It’s about the speed of constant change and what’s left behind. It’s painting over painting.” RUSSELL WEST
Above: Small Town detail
Russell West
FAST FOOD (LARGE)
Painting 60 x 60cm / mounted size 85 x 85cm
Layers of paint inside wooden mount
£9,900
Russell West
SMALL TOWN (LARGE)
Painting 60 x 60cm / mounted size 85 x 85cm
Layers of paint inside wooden mount
£9,900
