CHRISTOPHER RUSSELL
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CHRISTOPHER RUSSELL
Todd Merrill & Associates, Inc.
80 Lafayette Street
New York, NY 10013
www.toddmerrillstudio.com
Printed in the United States of America
Catalog Design: Dallas Dunn
TODD MERRILL STUDIO
Copyright © 2023 Todd Merrill
Self published using Lightning Press Totowa, NJ
CHRISTOPHER RUSSELL
In a career spanning over 30 years, New York City artist Christopher Russell has devoted himself to creating unique works of art, functional design, custom architectural elements, and large-scale commissions in an ever-expanding exploration of clay, his principal medium. Originally focused on painting and drawing, Russell was attracted to the malleable properties and endless possibilities of clay, which can traverse the divide between functional and purely aesthetic. Initially translating his draftsmanship to decorative graphic tiles, his work eventually progressed into hand-built sculpture, and most recently decorative vessels. His latest works are dynamic in structure and decoration. With a concentration on hand-building, something the artist attributes to a familial connection to architecture, engineering, and contracting, Russell eschews throwing pots “on the wheel”. While his geometrically rigid vessels look meticulously planned, the process is generally spontaneous. Process dictates the abstracted forms, but the ultimate goal is largely towards harmony, balance, and symmetry.
Most notable in the recent works is Russell’s energetic surface ornamentation. Patchworks of simple shapes, in hues ranging from natural to artificial, jostle and hug to create dynamic cubist patterns. A combination of black and white underglazes acts as a ground for his precise application of colored glazes, each individually developed by the artist. Employing stencil resists and decorative sgraffito results in work with an unexpected sense of depth.
Equally varied are the competing textures that converge across each surface. Russell affirms that “texture is the most visceral element in ceramics. It’s the thing that makes you want to touch. There’s design, color and form, but it’s texture that gives a piece its physical life.”
Conclusively the agony and joy in his ceramic practice comes from what is left to chance. Best laid plans are at the mercy of the kiln, making each work a risky venture and each success a treasured object.
Russell has been the subject of solo shows at the Everson Museum of Art in Syracuse NY, the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art in Sedalia MO, and at the Julie Saul Gallery in New York. His work has also been exhibited widely in group exhibitions, including at The Bernardaud Foundation in Limoges, France, the Royal West Academy in Bristol, England, the Paul Robeson Gallery at Rutgers University, and WaveHill, the prestigious public gardens in The Bronx, New York. Among numerous private collections his work is also in the collection of Longhouse Reserve: The Jack Lernor Larsen Estate. Notable commissions include a largescale ceramic wall mural for NYU Langone Hospital, as well as a commission by New York City’s Metro Transit Authority of two sets of cast bronze gates and sculpted finials for the fences that surround the Ninth Avenue subway station in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, which is on the National Register of Historic Places.
PATTERNED COLLECTION
Already an accomplished ceramic artist, in 2016 Russell experienced a sudden shift in his artistic practice. After 15 years of highly detailed figurative sculpture using one white clay body and one glaze, Russell felt a yearning for work that was loose, painterly, and had simpler forms. This led to a shift in focus to making vessels, using rugged terracotta and returning to working with colors, patterns, and surfaces.
Cylindrical Vessel, 2019
Glazed Ceramic
12h x 13w x 13d inches
Stout Vessel, 2019
Glazed Ceramic
9h x 8.50w x 8.50d inches
Peacock Vessel, 2019
Glazed Ceramic
12.25h x 8.50w x 8.50d inches
Tall Tortoise Vessel, 2019
Glazed Ceramic
15h x 8w x 8d inches
Dark Octagonal Vessel, 2020
Glazed Ceramic
9.50h x 6w x 6d inches
Dark Pink Hexagon Vessel, 2020
Glazed Ceramic
9.75h x 8w x 6.75d inches
Dark Narrow Vessel, 2020
Glazed Ceramic
14.50h x 6.50w x 6.50d inches
Wide Faceted Vessel, 2019
Glazed Ceramic
11.75h x 11.75w x 11.75d inches
Tall Terracotta Vessel, 2018
Glazed Ceramic
14h x 7.50w x 7.50d inches
Pentagonal Vessel III, 2019
Glazed Ceramic
8.50h x 8.50w x 8.50d inches
Pentagonal Vessel II, 2019
Glazed Ceramic
9h x 5w x 5d inches
Pentagonal Vessel I, 2019
Glazed Ceramic
9.50h x 5.50w x 5.50d inches
Cuffed Vessel, 2019
Glazed Ceramic
14.50h x 9w x 9d inches
Pink and Orange Vessel, 2019
Glazed Ceramic
10.50h x 9w x 9d inches
Green Accent Totem Vessel, 2020
Glazed Ceramic
18h x 7.50w x 7.50d inches
Monochrome Totem Vessel, 2020
Glazed Ceramic
18.50h x 6.50w x 6.50 inches
Green Angled Vessel, 2019
Glazed Ceramic
18h x 7w x 6.50d inches
FIBONACCI COLLECTION
The Fibonacci Collection was a spontaneous development for Russell. As he considered adding a 3D element to the vessels, the Fibonacci pattern, a mathematical spiral that appears throughout nature, emerged organically on his round forms. Russell became absorbed in the process, creating a press mold for each graduated surface element and attaching each pressed piece to the vessel. Although the process differed from making the Patterned and Stack pieces, Russell appreciated the change of pace it provided.
Gray Fibonacci Vessel, 2020
Glazed Ceramic
6h x 13w x 13d inches
Spike Fibonacci Vessel, 2019
Glazed Ceramic
15h x 13w x 13d inches
Pink Fibonacci Vessel, 2019
Glazed Ceramic
9.50h x 16w x 16d inches
STACK COLLECTION
Russell’s Stack Collection was a natural progression from the simpler vessel forms he had been working with. The decision to stack the vessels proved to be more complicated than anticipated, but the challenge was worth it. The pieces’ swing, with surprising views from different angles, reflecting the artist’s interest in modern architecture, cubism, and Dada.
Blue Ring Stack, 2021
Glazed Ceramic
17h x 9w x 8.50d inches
Wide White Stack, 2021
Glazed Ceramic
13h x 9w x 9d inches
Tall Brown Stack, 2021
Glazed Ceramic
17.50h x 85w x 8.50d inches
Glazed Ceramic
12h x 8w x 7d inches
Black and White Stack, 2021
ZURICH COLLECTION
Russell’s artistic evolution has been marked by a restless experimentation with different ceramic formats. From tiles to hand-built sculptures to vessels, his work has been a journey of constant exploration and discovery. The Zurich Collection is the latest chapter in this artistic journey, and it is one that reflects a bold and unapologetic aesthetic.
Drawing inspiration from the Swiss city of Zurich and its avant-garde heritage, the Zurich Collection is a departure from Russell’s previous work. The pieces are characterized by their dark, edgy, and propulsive energy. Russell sets large architectural forms against jagged, hard-edged marks, creating a tension that is both exciting and unsettling.
Cubist Zurich Vessel, 2023
Glazed Ceramic
17.50h x 12.50w x 12d inches
Zurich Tower I, 2023
Glazed Ceramic
25.50h x 9w x 8d inches
Zurich Tower III, 2023
Glazed Ceramic
24h x 8.50w x 8.50d inches
Zurich Urn II, 2022
Glazed Ceramic
18.50h x 13w x 13d inches
Abacus Screen, 2023
Glazed Ceramic, Steel Size by Commission
LIGHTING
Sea Green Lamp, 2022
Glazed Ceramic
15.50h x 14.50w x 14.50d inches
Sepia Forms Lamp, 2022
Glazed Ceramic
13.50h x 12w x 12d inches
Black Ovals Lamp, 2022
Glazed Ceramic
14.50h x 11w x 11d inches
Opaque Green Lamp, 2022
Glazed Ceramic 17h x 11.50w x 11.50d inches
Zurich Pentagon Lamp, 2023
Glazed Ceramic
38h x 12w x 12d inches (with shade)
Zurich Stack Lamp, 2023
Glazed Ceramic
30h x 13.5w x 13.5d inches (with shade)
TODD MERRILL STUDIO
Todd Merrill Studio represents an international group of established and emerging artists, each with a singular artistic vision and unprecedented point of view. In creating unique works of collectible design, each artist takes a hands-on approach that intersects contemporary design, fine art, traditional craft techniques, and pioneering innovation.
Individually, through meticulous craftsmanship and rigorous studio experimentation, each has developed leading-edge, proprietary methods that break previously set inherent limitations of conventional materials like wood, metal, plaster, concrete, ceramics, glass, and resin. Their intimate studio approach fosters an atmosphere of creativity where the work rendered significantly bears the hand of the artist.
Collectively the artists are helping to create a new visual vocabulary that advances long-held, established artistic boundaries. Their dynamic, one-of-a-kind, and frequently groundbreaking works contribute to today’s increasingly relevant grey space between art and design.
With the gallery’s support, the artists’ works have entered the collections of major private and public patrons and prestigious museums including the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum in New York; the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston; the Museum of Art and Design in New York; the High Museum
in Atlanta; the Victoria and Albert Museum in London; the Carnegie Museum of Art in Philadelphia, the Houston Museum of Fine Art, and the Brooklyn Museum in New York.
In 2000, Todd Merrill opened Todd Merrill Antiques which quickly became renowned for its glamorous and eclectic mix of twentieth-century furniture and lighting. The pioneering gallery was one of the of the first to promote modernist and postmodernist American studio artisans including Paul Evans, Phillip Lloyd Powell, George Nakashima, Karl Springer, James Mont, Tommi Parzinger, among others.
In 2008, Rizzoli published Merrill’s “Modern Americana: Studio Furniture from High Craft to High Glam”, the first ever authoritative examination of the great studio furniture makers and designers who, from 1940 thru the 1990s defined American high style. To celebrate the tenth anniversary, in 2018 Rizzoli published an expanded edition, adding 60 pages to his original book. This survey of the period continues with two massive additional chapters focused on Women Makers and Showrooms.
After the publication of Modern Americana in 2008, Merrill began to shift the mission of the gallery and started the Studio Contemporary program which has today become his primary focus.
