Artist Statement
I am primarily a narrative painter, a Canadian expat living in Marin County. With a successful career as an illustrator, including positions as an Adjunct Professor of Illustration at the California School of the Arts and as a staff artist at the San Francisco Chronicle, I bring a wealth of experience to my work. Drawing inspiration from immersive travel experiences and diligent study, my creative process is rooted in research and engagement with each subject. I explore themes like third-world cultures, global warming, the unhoused, wildfire landscapes, and the Anthropocene. My recent work aims to enlighten and educate viewers as I narrate visual stories.
I’m inspired by nature, landscape and the Anthropocene. I want to share my discoveries, through paint, of how the world’s environment is being transformed by climate change. I am an experiential traveler. Once I got lost in a slot canyon in Utah. I ended up painting five of these imposing, sandstone formations. On a recent trip to Iceland, I saw how global warming has expedited the creation of icebergs. I witnessed glacier calving firsthand. The experience resulted in a show of large paintings of icebergs. For the Ice Show at MarinMOCA in 2022, I showed a dozen paintings of icebergs with a message of climate change.
I’ve also used abstract imagery in my paintings and collages that are both biomorphic and improvisational. I discover the lyrical shapes through an empathy with the materials. I begin by applying acrylic paint or spraying enamel onto paper, canvas or wood panel without any predetermination. This art making is where I feel free to let go. To bring an unencumbered and joyous feeling to the process, I listen to the music of Miles Davis and John Coltrane. Jazz was the music of the Abstract Expressionist era, so integrating intuitive gestures seems natural. I believe in the conviction that emotional and artistic truth arises from improvisation, from the unconscious and is channeled through discipline, imagination and impulse.
I’ve shown my work in a variety of settings including Sofie Contemporary Arts in Calistoga, The Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, the SFMoMA Artists Gallery, the California College of the Arts in San Francisco and the Reactor Gallery in Toronto, Canada.
– Bill Russell
