CURRENT SHOW |ENCOUNTERED SPACES BY RUSSELL HORTON

Russell Horton is a painter of his surroundings. Rollo May in his book The Courage to Create, locates the birth of creation at the intersection of the subjective and the objective. The encounter that he is referring to is a person’s open, intensive and absorbing engagement with a task, an activity, or another person. The engagement with subject is not unique to Russ alone. It is safe to say that everyone has moments of exaltation when discovering a fresh landscape or anxiety when confronted with a confined space. For Russell his work seeks to slow the emotional experience to an exploration of his surroundings in which the viewer is invited to make their own discoveries.
 These spaces are dusty and dirty places and Russell's color palette is purposefully muted and gray to reflect this place. The abstract nature of the architecture, shipping containers and concrete overpasses are a departure point for further exploration of a world that, viewed out a car window, quickly flashes by on the way to some aspect of our lives.
 
Russ Horton is currently the painting instructor at Baker University is Baldwin Kansas.