A&E
ART
Mornings in the Park with Sean Strolls through Wetlands Park inspired artist’s latest work
December 19–25, 2013
By Steve Bornfeld
VEGAS SEVEN
68
MAKE NO MISTAKE—the dude’s an artist from tip to tail. Yet he’s so refreshingly … unartist-y. “Painting is just mark-making, you’re making marks,” says 34-year-old Sean Russell, nearly shrugging out the simplest explanation of the artistic process since cavemen scrawled on the walls of their extremely retro man caves. Expecting profound explanations of the glorious agony of being an artist? Go elsewhere. Probe for intellectual insight into his exhibit, Unanimous Decision, at the Winchester Cultural Center Gallery, and you get this: “There are no amazing stories behind these,” Russell says, gesturing toward the pieces curving around the intimate gallery walls. “They are just paintings of the complexities of plants.” That’s that … well, not really.
Unafraid to tackle topical, incendiary subjects—some of his recent work addressed Obamacare, Syria’s chemical weapons, the government shutdown, drone strikes and NSA spying—Russell turned from news to nature for inspiration this time. “In the mornings I’ve been going to Wetlands Park, around 5, before the sun is up, and I do a little walk to clear my head,” says Russell, who teaches art appreciation at the College of Southern Nevada and lives a mile north of the park. “Mostly I lecture, so I go through it in my head. No one else is there; you see all the animals, the beavers and rabbits and coots and ducks. You don’t care about Obamacare anymore. You don’t care about drone strikes.” Presto. An exhibit is born. Animals are prevalent during
his strolls, but not in these oil paintings—only a lone coot makes an appearance in one of the eight pieces. And except for “Henderson Horizon”—which depicts the city coated in a gauzy glow as the light takes over from the night—the exhibit focuses on the intertwining plants and their entangled branches that fourish at the park. Once again, simplicity rules. “It’s a series of branches and sticks and random fora; there’s no idea behind it,” Russell says. “It was part of a photograph I took that I found interesting, and it allowed me to make the marks I like to make. I would walk around, see them from a different angle, or the way a tree has fallen over, the way the lines are, I fnd that interesting.” Gentility and positivity emanate from these pieces,
a departure from his eclectic up to create an exhibit for the oeuvre that swings thematiWinchester Gallery before Wetcally from bar signs and skulls lands Park became his muse. to Edward Snowden and Solution? Paint every canvas an windbag senators launching atrocious neon color. obstructive flibusters. Only “I needed a problem to one, “Invasive Species,” adsolve—paint over the neon. I dresses malevolence, depictwould go into the studio and ing the saltcedar, a deceptively say, ‘God, these are so trashy,’ pretty tree with long, slender neon blue and neon purple branches and deep-pink fowand it was my challenge to ers that wreaks havoc on its cover that up. A sculptor beshrubby neighbors. gins with a block of marble and “They’re rampant through carves it away. I started with a the wash area,” Russell exblock of neon and had to get plains. “I had a 15-foot-tall one rid of it. A white canvas is too in my backyard. I got a letter easy. But little bits of the neon from my HOA, which inspired peek through, which I like.” me. It said, ‘This is an invasive What about that inscrutable species, not native, please title, Unanimous Decision? get rid of it.’ The leaves are Trace it back to the proposal flled with salt. It salts the area letter he wrote that led to his around it, and your grass does selection as the latest artist to not like salt. It’s a terrible tree.” exhibit at Winchester. Essentially, that’s it—you “At the end of my letter, I gaze upon nature wrote, ‘I don’t know via paint and canvas, what I wanna make, UNANIMOUS sharing the simple but I want it to be DECISION appreciation that titled Unanimous DeciRussell renews every sion,’ which I thought 10 a.m.-8 morning before was funny because p.m. Tue-Fri, dawn. No complex I didn’t know what I 9 a.m.-6 p.m. theses on the artwas going to make, Sat through ist’s “process.” Well, so there wasn’t any Jan. 10, Winmaybe one. unanimous decision. chester Cul“I sort of had Sometimes I just hear tural Center writer’s block, I didn’t words and phrases Gallery, 3130 know what I was going and they stick in my S. McLeod Dr., to paint at frst,” he head.” free, 455-7340. remembers of gearing Simple as that.
PHOTOS BY SEAN RUSSELL
Organic art: Sean Russell in his studio, “Unanimous Decision Invasive” (above) and “Decision Intertwine.”