Russell Mills work is about collage and how reactive the entire piece is to itself and the viewer. His work is incredibly subjective and he wants the viewer thinking laterally so that they can see greater than they ‘see’.
He is very interested in self generating art and breaking the usual way of thinking to force the mind to think in different ways. His work with musician (most notably the Nine Inch Nails) is incredibly anti pop in that it deconstructs the sexual nature of pop and reconstructs it in unrecognisable ways.
Nature being more important than the knowledge we take from it is a central theme of his work, he pulls inspiration from the world around him and its political themes; from religion to oppression (are they not the same thing?) and hypocrisy and bureaucracy; these are the themes that hold his very dark and often cynical but beautiful and thought provoking pieces together.
One of my favourite pieces he shows us is one of a set of hands that change positions from giving to reception to love; universals gestures we all make; the idea behind that was connecting the head to the heart to the hands and it touched me (I went there)
“If everything is doomed to be a graph or a chart, then how do we explain art in the world?”
I am Timi