Ultra contemporary conceptual verisimilitude - Photorealism in painting
Welcome to the website for Mark Alan Russell's photorealist art. I am a self representing artist and pretty much of what I do as an artist is primarily for my own enjoyment and satisfaction. Most of my life has been spent looking and admiring art, not so much modern art, but that of the old masters. Their thouroughly realist paintings have inspired me to produce a photorealist / hyperrealist form of painting. I try to produce modern, ultra contemporary photorealism that looks back to seventeenth century Dutch paintings for inspiration and to our current time for source material.
Subject matter is quite varied and covers cars, BMX, portraits, CNC machines, still life, flowers and landscapes. Some of the photographs were sourced from magazines, brochures or the web but I also paint my own photographs. I am unlike almost all of the other photorealist painters in that I deliberately do not stick to one subject. It's important for me to 'comment' on the world around me and that means taking a wide variety of subject matter from commercial sources and turning them into fine art. I believe that this is the best use of photorealism as the viewer gets the visual enjoyment of seeing the artists translation of the 'surface of things' and a strong impression of an idea that underlies the work.
I paint on MDF board using the worlds best artist acrylic paint and as you can see in the image here I use a grid to transfer, first a complex drawing, and then I apply thin layers of acrylic.
My work is only available for sale online at this website, and I will undertake commissions. I also produce totally abstract artwork and model futuristic spaceships.
There is also a small section on the history of photorealist painting. This is going to be an expanding part of the site and currently includes articles on Audrey Flack, Richard Estes, Robert Bechtle and Malcolm Morley.
