High Drama

A cinematic sense of drama, often with a whiff of scandal, pervades British artist Alex Russell Flint's paintings.

- ALEX RUSSELL FLINT

Leda (study), oil on linen panel, 23 x 35"

Highly narrative in nature, the questions they summon come fast and furious. Is the supine woman's dress going to go up in flames from the cigarette about to fall from her fingertips? Is the lifeless woman with an old-fashioned phone limply hanging from its cord, dead? The juxtaposition of elegant women who seem like they have lost the will to resist submission, with sinister details—bandaged wrists, a drip of blood trickling down from a scraped knee, a balled-up bloodied tissue—heightens the effect.

Cut, oil on canvas, 23 x 36"

“I like mixing the elegant with the mundane because it creates a bit of friction—it makes the viewer stop and look again,” says Russell Flint. Referring to his new works The Dance and Consumed II, he continues, “The gloves or the tissue pull the image out of fantasy and give it a human edge. They add tension, a kind of twist that keeps the painting from becoming too polished or predictable. I like to create images that while beautiful are slightly jarring and unsettling.”