Russell Horton
RUSSELL HORTON was born in Providence in 1965 and later became the first visual artist in a long line of family members who had worked with their hands — maintaining aircraft engines, building boats and farming the fields of southeastern New England. He received his BFA from Rhode Island College and his MFA from Clemson University. After graduate school, he continued painting in the studio while supporting himself as an art handler and museum preparator.
Horton’s work examines the urban spaces and landscape of the plains. Observation, photo reference, color studies and memory all play a role in pictures that are intentionally muted in palette and unpeopled, creating a pregnant stillness which might be disturbed at any moment
by unwanted intrusions into the solitude.
The impact of our human presence on the land runs throughout Horton’s pictures, but people themselves are fewer and further between the architecture of pump jacks, holding tanks, water towers and other agricultural and industrial structures which gain exaggerated prominence in the stark openness of his compositions. He exchanges the nostalgic rhetorical tradition of the pristine, unspoiled American landscape for more acute contemporary portrayals of a workaday world that, viewed out a car window, flashes quickly by as we travel to more pressing appointments and locales.
Horton has exhibited in solo shows in Providence, Rhode Island, Washington, D.C. and Kansas City, Missouri. Recently he was named Landscape Artist of the Year at the Art Comes Alive exhibition hosted by Art Design Consultants in Cincinnati, Ohio. His work is in private collections nationwide as well as at Clemson University and Baker University. He currently teaches painting and drawing at Baker University in Baldwin City, Kansas where he and his wife Carol live with their two cats, Kimi and Skylar.
RUSSELL HORTON was born in Providence in 1965 and later became the first visual artist in a long line of
RUSSELL HORTON was born in Providence in 1965 and later became the first visual artist in a long line of family members who had worked with their hands — maintaining aircraft engines, building boats and farming the fields of southeastern New England. He received his BFA from Rhode Island College and his MFA from Clemson University. After graduate school, he continued painting in the studio while supporting himself as an art handler and museum preparator.
Horton’s work examines the urban spaces and landscape of the plains. Observation, photo reference, color studies and memory all play a role in pictures that are intentionally muted in palette and unpeopled, creating a pregnant stillness which might be disturbed at any moment by unwanted intrusions into the solitude.
The impact of our human presence on the land runs throughout Horton’s pictures, but people themselves are fewer and further between the architecture of pump jacks, holding tanks, water towers and other agricultural and industrial structures which gain exaggerated prominence in the stark openness of his compositions. He exchanges the nostalgic rhetorical tradition of the pristine, unspoiled American landscape for more acute contemporary portrayals of a workaday world that, viewed out a car window, flashes quickly by as we travel to more pressing appointments and locales.
Horton has exhibited in solo shows in Providence, Rhode Island, Washington, D.C. and Kansas City, Missouri. Recently he was named Landscape Artist of the Year at the Art Comes Alive exhibition hosted by Art Design Consultants in Cincinnati, Ohio. His work is in private collections nationwide as well as at Clemson University and Baker University. He currently teaches painting and drawing at Baker University in Baldwin City, Kansas where he and his wife Carol live with their two cats, Kimi and Skylar.
members who had worked with their hands — maintaining aircraft engines, building boats and farming the fields of southeastern New England. He received his BFA from Rhode Island College and his MFA from Clemson University. After graduate school, he continued painting in the studio while supporting himself as an art handler and museum preparator.
Horton’s work examines the urban spaces and landscape of the plains. Observation, photo reference, color studies and memory all play a role in pictures that are intentionally muted in palette and unpeopled, creating a pregnant stillness which might be disturbed at any moment by unwanted intrusions into the solitude.
The impact of our human presence on the land runs throughout Horton’s pictures, but people themselves are fewer and further between the architecture of pump jacks, holding tanks, water towers and other agricultural and industrial structures which gain exaggerated prominence in the stark openness of his compositions. He exchanges the nostalgic rhetorical tradition of the pristine, unspoiled American landscape for more acute contemporary portrayals of a workaday world that, viewed out a car window, flashes quickly byas we travel to more pressing appointments and locales.
Horton has exhibited in solo shows in Providence, Rhode Island, Washington, D.C. and Kansas City, Missouri. Recently he was named Landscape Artist of the Year at the Art Comes Alive exhibition hosted by Art Design Consultants in Cincinnati, Ohio. His work is in private collections nationwide as well as at Clemson University and Baker University. He currently teaches painting and drawing at Baker University in Baldwin City, Kansas where he and his wife Carol live with their two cats, Kimi and Skylar.