ARTWORK
Interrobang, colored pencil on paper, 40 x 30”, 2020
The Distance Between Us - Solo exhibition at Ridgewater College, Feb-April 2021
Solo exhibition of drawings and collages at Ridgewater College’s two campus galleries in Willmar & Hutchinson, MN
Russ White is a fiscal year 2020 recipient of an Artist Initiative Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity was made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
bodyworks An ongoing series of collages, drawings, and prints
Heat Signature, 7-color screenprint, edition of 100, 24 x 18”, 2021. Available in the Shop.
On Whiteness
The following is an ongoing series of mixed media pieces executed in June of 2020. Whiteness can be a mask, a lens, a blindfold, a hood. It can be a back yard just as easily as a panic room. A culture and a lack thereof; a history known but not to itself. It is often both a wound and a weapon. There is much left to unpack and unsettle. All works are colored pencil, acrylic gesso, and house paint on 32x24” panels and are available through Rubine Red Gallery.
James Baldwin, 1963:
“It’s going to sound like a very shocking thing to say: I am not the victim here. I have been mistreated, that’s quite true. But you have been even more violently mistreated because you pretended I wasn’t real. The damage done to me, I may or may not survive. The damage done to you... is much more crucial. The most mistreated people in the history of the world are the American white people. When one begins to accept that, then liberals will stop talking to me as though they are missionaries.”
Photo by Peder Vinge
You and Me and Them and Us Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, Winona. 2020
Solo exhibition at the Lillian Davis Hogan Gallery at Saint Mary’s University of Minnesota, Winona, MN, February 20 - March 28, 2020
The work in this show represents a renewed focus on portraiture and figure study over the past year. I’m also experimenting with control, at times making laboriously detailed drawings and precisely cut collages while at others scribbling quickly and freely, finding satisfaction in gesture instead of detail. I am looking for some balance between spontaneity and rigor, a way to marry skill and intuition.
The subject of this pursuit is the human body, with all its attendant baggage and magic. With each body comes an identity — personal and societal — with a name, a family, a gender, a race, an age, a set of abilities, and a personality. Almost all of these portraits are of people I know. How can a body with so many specifics become a stand-in, a conduit for other people, other bodies, other identities?
Another Fine Mess Squirrel Haus Arts, Minneapolis MN, 2019
Video by Chris Rackley
Another Fine Mess was sponsored by We Are All Criminals, All Square, and Surly Brewing. Beer sales and 10% of art sales benefited WAAC.
Russ White is a fiscal year 2018 recipient of an Artist Initiative Grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity was made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.
Photo by Rafael Pina
Personal Correspondence 2019
A series of mixed media drawings on personalized stationery given to me as a child.
Shown as a part of the juried group exhibition Wintertide at Public Functionary, Minneapolis, MN, January 2019. Juror: John Schuerman.
Loose Change Hopkins Center for the Arts, 2018
Solo exhibition, Hopkins Center for the Arts, January 11 - February 11, 2018. Also exhibited in LOCAL CURRENCIES at the Coffman Art Gallery, University of Minnesota, April 21 - August 26, 2018.
"Loose Change, an exhibition of new colored pencil portraits by Minneapolis-based artist Russ White, reframes the concept of coin portraiture as a form of fine art... Instead of showcasing presidents and dignitaries, the portraits depict everyday people from many walks of life to show the beauty in the individual and our shared humanity. With its combination of realistic style and contemporary colors, the works of Loose Change feel both classic and of-the-time." - Jahna Peloquin, Southwest Journal
"Taking a photorealistic approach, White gives a gravitas and prominence to his subjects, offering new meanings of how we view leaders and people of importance. With this work, the artist suggests the future of change exists within all of us." - Sheila Regan, City Pages
Situation Normal Truckstop Gallery, Minneapolis MN, 2017
Solo exhibition, Truckstop Gallery, March 4 - 19, 2017
An exhibition of sculptures, flags, and colored pencil drawings, Situation Normal is a reaction to our new political reality under the Trump Administration. The work uses orange and white barricades as a symbol both of our country's newfound state of anxiety and of the resistance to the unAmerican initiatives of this administration and Congress. Twenty percent of sales at the show were donated to Planned Parenthood and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Macro Machines Gamut Gallery, Minneapolis MN 2016
Solo exhibition, Gamut Gallery, April 2-23, 2016
A solo show of large scale colored pencil drawings, photographs, and sculptural installations, Macro Machines is fundamentally about what forms us as individuals and as a society. The work reflects on childhood stresses and assumptions, attitudes about our national climate, and our difficult relationship with the natural world. It is at once funny and somber, personal and political, cartoonishly bright and darkly real.
"In his complicated setups, the cars act out traumas of modern life, often to wry or darkly comic effect." - Mary Abbe, Star Tribune
"With a coy sense of humor and a personal touch, the pieces challenge our current world with whimsy." - Sheila Regan, City Pages
"The large-scale works, a play on the tiny Micro Machine toys of White’s childhood, stand in for larger social institutions like the military, police, and the school system." - Eric Best, Southwest Journal