Russell Prescott
{Steals the show}
Russell Prescott is a Sydney-based artist who works with acrylics, gouache, charcoal, pastels, and oils, exploring urban and natural landscapes in an expressive and figurative style.
Writer: Joseph Doumet
VICTORIA STREET
AS a young man, Russell Prescott considered going to art school. “I assumed that was never gonna fly. I mean, we're dealing with the 1970s.” He became an architect, gaining a reputation for his hand-drawn designs. Not “the usual, fairly sterile CAD drawings.”
In 2018, he turned back to art for art’s sake, enrolling in short courses with Wendy Sharpe and Guy Morgan. “I figured it’s time to learn to do it properly. I wonder what is properly or not.” His teachers, it seems, were impressed.
At first, Russell wasn’t sure what to paint. He started with portraiture, though not without complications. “No one will pose for me!” Many of his portraits are of his wife, daughter, and mother.
“My mother was getting very old. She was quite excited that I decided to take up art again.” She posed for a Christmas card months before she died.
His new vocation was liberating. Urban landscapes are awash with strange light and shifted perspectives. “So less like it was done by an architect on a drawing board.” Working from a photo, he painted the Harbour Bridge from Balmain, but you’d never find the angle. “It’s like imagining what it would be like if the super yachts all got out of the water at once.”
One of his favourite works, of an old wharf, caught his interest because of the rubbish. “When you see archaeological dig photos, they learn more from the rubbish than the statues and monuments.” Though drawn, he used coarse arches watercolour paper. “It has a disadvantage; it’s so soft you can’t use a rubber. You’ll rub the paper off. But again, see how the line work becomes very soft?”
Not that he would ever restrict himself to rougher canvas. On karst stone paper: “It’s dead smooth and non-porous. So nothing’s gonna dry in a hurry. If you look carefully, see how there’s a white gap between every colour? I think that ends up being quite a nice effect.”
One painting of sand dunes is a perfect example of constant exploration. “If you paint a lot of reeds, it will be black between them. Especially that time in the morning. You can’t paint between every one!”
“First, I covered the whole canvas in yellow, then painted it in black, then I took the black off with a pallet knife, scratching all the reeds. Then, I painted some white and used things like fan brushes. So every bit of it was an experiment.”
THE COAL LOADER
As a young architect in Adelaide, Russell bought a painting by Kim Bonython—an unusually graffitied canvas by a man who does landscapes. “Looking back on it now, he’s just done a trip to New York. Just when people like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring emerged on the scene, he was experimenting!”
GLEBE ISLAND BRIDGE
TURBINE HALL AT COCKATOO ISLAND
