Siger October 2022 Oct-3 - Flipbook - Page 25
Russell Herron
Russell Herron (b.1967, London, UK), works primarily with pencil
on paper.
My work uses history, place and identity as touchstones to
navigate work in various forms and to produce bodies of work
that reference these concerns. In the last few years I have
been exploring portraiture through drawings of faces made in
cardboard, using pencil on paper as medium. The pencil drawn
cardboard portraits are a way to think about portraiture without identity,reducing the ‘face’ down to its most basic features
– eyes, nose, mouth – sometimes even less than this. Some of
the faces suggest certain emotions, some are more discreet,
less obvious. Each has a resonance for me from a vast mental
catalogue of faces, people and characters from history; an
expansive register of eclectic images stretching across early
humans and Neanderthals, Egyptian burial masks, Mummers
plays, surgical reconstruction, movie stars,superheroes, ventriloquist dummies, gas masks, photo booth snaps, mugshots,
family photos, cartoons, historical portraiture, mutants,
aliens, cuddly toys, comics. These influences are alluded to
rather than implied and the resulting works rest in a location
of their own construction.
Small cardboard portrait 261
graphite drawing on paper
15 x 11.5 cm, 2022
Small cardboard portrait 259
graphite drawing on paper
14 x 13 cm, 2022