FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
November 2023
Dreamland: Russell Young, Northern England’s prodigal son, returns with a sweeping art exhibition examining the nature of fame
The artist’s solo exhibition features a new body of work featuring cultural icons with Maddox Gallery in Hale Cheshire and London
London, UK – British-American artist Russell Young premieres new works in his solo exhibition Dreamland with Maddox Gallery in both Hale Cheshire and London, on view November 30, 2023 – February 7, 2024.
Young is best known for his large scale silk screen paintings examining the cultural phenomena of fame and the promise (and souring) of the American Dream.
Dreamland marks a prodigal return for the artist who grew up in Northern England, where he spent much of his time moving from town to town in an isolating existence and living vicariously through classic Hollywood cinema and spaghetti westerns. Adopted without any knowledge of his origins, Young’s lack of personal or even a shared history has left him free to explore dreams and fantasies of sometimes better, sometimes harsher worlds.
“L.A. was the flame — and I was the moth.” – Russell Young
Dreamland also marks the next chapter in Young’s ongoing exploration of cultural icons and the nature of fame with over 40 new diamond-dusted silk screen paintings. A body of work that has taken three years to create, Dreamland features a stunning roster of instantly recognizable protagonists, including new additions to the series featuring the likes of Brigitte Bardot, The Beatles, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley, Mick Jagger, Kate Moss, and others.
Described as a “voluntary keeper and interpreter of some of the most interesting and subversive images ever recorded,” Young’s practice often finds the artist going to extreme lengths to source exactly the right image and imbue each with a sense of the visceral and physical by creating one-of-a-kind pigments, pulling each silk screen by hand, and adding tactile layers of diamond dust.
Dreamland will first exhibit in Hale, Greater Manchester, with Overfinch, making this his first time ever exhibiting in Northern England. Dreamland will then exhibit at Maddox Gallery in London.
Details
Dreamland
On view November 30, 2023 – February 7, 2024
Opening in Hale on November 23, 2023
Opening In London, November 30, 2023
About Russell Young
Russell Young, born in 1959 in Yorkshire, is a British-American artist best known for his large scale silk screen paintings examining cultural icons, the nature of fame, and the souring of the American Dream.
His earliest breakthrough was his photography of George Michael for the sleeve of the album Faith in 1987. Young photographed many music stars throughout the 1970s and 1980s, including Morrissey, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, REM, The Smiths, Bauhaus, Diana Ross, Paul Newman, Björk, and many others. He went on to shoot over 100 music videos for leading artists during MTV’s height in the 1990s, which brought him to the United States.
Young eventually moved to California, where he began his current practice with his sold-out show Pig Portraits in Los Angeles in 2003. The many series that have followed, including his ongoing Heroes + Heroines and WEST, demonstrate his visceral, analog processes and signature use of diamond dust. He has exhibited across the world in numerous galleries alongside masterclass artists, institutions, and cultural figures. These include museum exhibitions at the Modern Art Museum Shanghai, Multimedia Art Museum Moscow, Cornell Art Museum, Polk Museum of Art, and the Goss-Michael Foundation. His genesis NFT debuted and sold on SuperRare in 2022.
Young’s work is included in many prominent private and institutional collections including those of Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Barack Obama, David Bowie, Drake, Angelina Jolie, David Hockney, Kayne West, Brad Pitt, and others, as well as The Getty Collection in Los Angeles and The White House Collection in Washington, D.C. His works have crossed the auction block at all of the world’s major auction houses, including Sotheby’s, Christie’s, and Phillips.
He currently lives in Southern California.
Website: www.russellyoung.com
Instagram: @bankrobbercalifornia
Twitter: @_russellyoung