Detail, Christopher Russell, The Explorers #31, 2018, pigment print scratched with razor, 19.75 x 27.75 in. (50.2 x 68.6 cm) framed
Christopher Russell is best known for scratching drawings into his photographs. However, underlying that process is an expansive practice that intersects drawing, narrative fiction, photography and the raw materiality of the photographic substrate. Russell works from the interstices, always subverting his chosen role. Throughout the oeuvre of his writing he has created a cadre of outsiders, while his drawings of repeating patterns and halftone dots take a laborious approach to material that is more easily reproduced mechanically. Russell makes frequent nods to photographic tradition and processes, but executes his work in a manner that undermines the indexical quality of the photography’s illusionistic space.