Nathaniel Russell is a man of words. His woodblock prints, posters, drawings, are all little mini sonic poems, declarations of humanity within the framework of a larger system that exists around us. His new show, Still as the Sun, is on view at WRONG in Marfa right now, an exhibition of originals and prints, for which he said a few words about it below.
"I had some paintings that were not great and I painted over them with a few layers of leftover house paint, carefully (?) masking off the plywood "frame" I nailed around the outside of the panels. I then made these tiled-up photocopies into the larger images, wheat pasted them to the surface and once dried put several layers of polyurethane on top to make them shiny and ready to be looked at. I made these with a mix of found and made imagery, distorted and processed by the photocopy process which I think is about 75% of the joy of the whole thing. I think of these as in the same realm of my fake fliers, same process, a little more mysterious and serious but still not afraid of a joke at the world's/my own expense. I like making these because they are fast (first thought/best thought) and look like they've been through the washer a few times. the other day I said "all the pictures are songs and all the songs are pictures" and dang if I'm not starting to believe it."