Collector's Choice

Phillip Russell is a Southern Highlands-based artist who is best known for his landscape paintings of Australia’s natural bushland.  

This exhibition is a collection of twelve small and two larger paintings, mainly exploring the bushland and vistas of our region and including other parts of New South Wales. 

Working mainly in oils, in an impressionistic style, he is a bold colourist, transforming his subject-matter with a dramatic and vivid palette. Being particularly attracted to complexity in the landscape, Phillip illuminates the bush with a spirituality that demonstrates his identification with the land. 

Regarding his methodology, with a new painting in mind Philip retains much of the visual imagery as he walks through the landscape. He then draws on his memory, and sometimes with the aid of photographs, he brings forth the various colour and design elements, taking what he needs, to reconstruct them to his own purpose.

Initially, Phillip works broadly to establish the design and concept, but this must be constantly adjusted as the image slowly emerges. This is the start of a long process of careful selection of colour and balance in the tonality.

Listening to what a painting has to say and letting it take on its own character without predicting the outcome is important: the emphasis is on the act of painting and letting the character of the brushwork and pigments speak for themselves.   

His subject continues to be the source of an enduring challenge to investigate shape, light and colour in nature in all its diversity.