I wanted to have a closer look at the work of Russ Mills, a British artist who specialises in paintings which tend to be quite dark and have a negative feel about them.
He usually produces a portrait of someone, more often than not his model is a woman, and he uses paint and pens to deface them with sharp, jagged brushstrokes and splats of paint. The sharp lines in his pieces resemble scribbles and help to show movement within the image. In the bottom left painting, the brushstrokes a part of the woman’s hair; they make it look like the hair is moving. He generally creates his paintings on top of a white or grey background, however in the top left image, he has blended the body of the woman into a black and red background, where the woman’s face is the most clear and visible thing in the image.
As regards to the other paintings, Mills has used mostly monochromatic colours with a dash of red, which to me symbolises anger or pain. Furthermore, the women in Mills’ paintings never appear to be smiling; I think the overall effect of the dark colours and jagged brushstrokes helps to make them look quite solemn.
Laura Owens 