Rock ’n’ roll was a magical ‘Alice in Wonderland’ ride
*Russell Young
written & interview Abigail Hart
For some people, a 15-year career as a rock-and-roll photographer and music video director is the stuff of dreams. For Russell Young, it was just the warm-up act.
After a childhood the artist himself describes as “barren, colorless, and emotionally barren,” Young got himself into art school and then moved to London to work as a photographer’s assistant. He began his career photographing rock and roll gigs, including gigs by the Smiths and R.E.M..
Central to all of Young’s art is the pursuit of color. Whether it is hand-mixed paints selected to reflect the colors of California, or ancient pigments sourced directly in Italy, the context behind the colors creates the story of every painting or screen print. His popular use of diamond dust, inspired by Andy Warhol, brings dimension to silkscreened paintings. It reflects light on top of monochrome colors to pull the eye across the canvas and manipulate the image below. The dimensionality of Young’s pieces reflect the dimensionality of perception—that people, and things, can be perceived in more than one way.
Young later moved to California where he applied his gritty aesthetic to iconic rock-and-roll photography, including the album sleeve for Faith by George Michael, as well as music video directing with artists like Eartha Kitt. In the 90’s, Young moved to fine art full time, using the context of his former profession to make statements about fame, truth, and life.
.artist talk
Russell Young
speaks with
Abigail Hart
first published in
Issue Nr. 31, POP ISSUE, 02/2021
Russell Young Artist in Studio
HOW DID YOU START OUT, AND WHAT DREW YOU TO BECOME AN ARTIST?
Art was deep inside me from the earliest age. I would draw scary trees in thick graphite pencils when I was four, crawling on paper on the floor. Not long after, I remember taking one of my very first photographs of a bird on our lawn in Northern England only for the film to come back developed so dark I could barely make out the bird. I’ve sought light and color and that same sense of curiosity ever since.
TELL US ABOUT YOUR EARLY CAREER, PHOTOGRAPHING ROCK STARS AND CELEBRITIES. HOW HAS THAT INFORMED YOUR WORK THROUGHOUT YOUR CAREER? HAVE YOU REVISITED THAT EARLY WORK?
Rock ‘n’ roll was a magical "Alice in Wonderland" ride.
My photography and music video directing spanned fifteen years during the height of MTV. That proximity to fame definitely informs my ongoing explorations into glamour, excess, and my complex relationship with the American Dream.
Photography and the nature of fame was the ideal curtain-raiser to my paintings, screen-printing, and art, to study, see, take, and inhale photographs, light, dark, shadows, color, and cropping.
YOUR BIO STATES THAT YOUR WORK AFTER YOUR ILLNESS IN 2010 ENGAGES "A CENTRAL DILEMMA: THE EXACT EDGE WHERE BOYLIKE WONDER FALLS INTO VIOLENT TRUTH." HOW HAS THAT CONVERSATION CONTINUED IN YOUR WORK SINCE THEN?
I emerged from an eight-day coma after contracting the H1N1 virus alive but unable to walk, breathe on my own, or read and write. My life, relationships, and creative energies had dramatically shifted. I had even forgotten the color green existed. This absolute loss of memory and ability to function echoed throughout my whole life, and I had to relearn everything.
Surviving and the ability to learn again on my own terms eliminated fear, allowing me to pursue a creative journey all on my own, taking a path less traveled.
RUSSEL YOUNG
The Cowboy #1 Durango Red, 2018
acrylic paint and oil based ink hand pulled screen print on linen
29 1/2 x 19 1/2 inches
RUSSELL YOUNG
The last american hero, Slab City Orange, 2018
acrylic paint and oil based ink hand pulled screen print on linen
29 x 48 inches
RUSSEL YOUNG
Once upon a time in the west #3, 2018
acrylic paint, oil based ink and hand pulled screen print on linen and cloth