LOS ANGELES—Von Lintel Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of unique photographs by Christopher Russell. This exhibition is the artist’s first with the gallery and will coincide with The Getty Center exhibition, Cut! Paper Play in Contemporary Photography,, featuring Russell.
Christopher Russell is best known for scratching drawings into his photographs in an expansive practice that intersects drawing, narrative fiction, photography and the raw materiality of the photographic substrate. He makes frequent nods to photographic tradition and processes, but executes his work in a manner that undermines the properties of photography’s illusionistic space.
Russell’s current body of work was photographed in the Columbia River Gorge where Carleton Watkins photographed the West with pristine vistas characteristic of the 19th century Romantic period. Using abstract approaches to the genre of landscape, Russell mixes interpretations of Watkins images by creating ambiguous vistas and landscapes indecipherable to locate in place or time. He manipulates the light before it enters the lens resulting in a hazy landscape he later manipulates through etching directly into the emulsion of the print and occasionally the glazing to create an artwork that is at once photograph, drawing and bas-relief.
The opening reception will be February 24, 6-8pm.
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