Brian F. Russell

(b. 1961) born in  Memphis, lives in Arlington
Hemisphere 22 Sheaf, 2003
glass and steel, 12 x 10 x 10 inches, 2003.23.1

Russell received his B.A. in studio art from Rhodes College in Memphis. He began with black and white photography and after school moved into furniture making, crafting structures of wood and steel. He decided to incorporate glass into his work, and his visual quest ended when he discovered the art of lost wax glass casting on a visit to New Zealand. He has exhibited in Tennessee, California, Kentucky, Illinois and New York.  Russell’s work can be found in the collections of the First Tennessee Bank, Memphis; Piedmont Natural Gas, Charlotte, NC; Energy Capital Partners, New York, NY; Cafejian Museum, Minneapolis, MN; Tennessee State Museum, and Rhodes College in Memphis among many others. This piece was exhibited at the Tennessee Arts Commission Gallery as part of the Governor’s 2003 Inaugural Exhibit.

My aim on a public scale is to involve the viewer, to interject into the world points of beauty, interest and spontaneity. I want people to use my sculpture as an excuse to mentally shift to another level of consciousness, above the daily hubbub, even for a moment, and to reconnect with themselves via that primal, emotional, cortex-controlled spasm of an encounter with an unexpected oasis in a visual desert. – Brian Russell