B. 1959, UK –
Lives and works in California and New York

Russell Young was born in 1959, into what the artist describes as “the cold, wet, isolation of Northern England.” Born to an unwed mother, as a baby he was passed from foster care to a nunnery before being adopted when he was four months old. From an early age Young felt like an outsider in a dark world. He was powerfully drawn to the idealised drama and warm comfort of the American dream. Everything American he came in contact with represented freedom, possibility and sun.

After finishing school he studied at Chester Art College and Exeter Art College, before moving to London where he was unable to find a job. After months on the streets he began assisting photographer, Christos Raftopoulos. Raftopoulos pushed Young to pursue his own projects. The artist started to photograph the club performances of Bauhaus, R.E.M. and the Smiths. The photographs were exquisite. He quickly attracted the attention of magazines and record companies. In 1986, he shot the ‘Faith’ sleeve for George Michael. He produced portraits of Morrissey, Bjork, Springsteen, Dylan, New Order, Diana Ross, Paul Newman and many other celebrities. He began to direct music videos: directing one hundred during the glory days of MTV.

In 1992, Young moved to Hollywood. He met his wife Finola Hughes and life took shape for him in America. He grew frustrated by the limits of the photograph and the commercial world around it and began to paint seriously. Young rented a studio in Brooklyn and began his now famous series of Pig Portraits. These powerful paintings subverted traditional portraiture, while interrogating the very concept of celebrity. In subsequent bodies of work such as Fame + Shame, Dirty Pretty Things and American Envy: Young captures recent historical events and icons of popular culture in images that combine glamour, beauty, violence, rebellion and excess.

In February 2010, Young was admitted to hospital with the H1N1 virus, the Swine Flu. He endured an 8-day induced coma, emerging from his near-death experience with severe memory loss and an incredibly weak body. During his process of recovery, Young began to explore the nature of trauma and its effect on both the individual and cultural psyche. Filled with a new, rough energy of violence, sex and power, he produced his magnificent, Helter Skelter paintings. In his next series, Isolation, in an act reminiscent of William S. Burroughs, he ‘cuts up’ the glossy files of bound women and forces them into large, unimaginable orgies of claustrophobic assemblage.

Young continues to challenge and reinvent himself using bold, forceful checks and assaults on his own systems to find new ways of expression. He is one of the most in demand contemporary artists of the 21st Century with work held in private and public collections across the world. Notable collectors of his work include; President Barack Obama, David Bowie, David Hockney, Elizabeth Taylor, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Aby Rosen, Mohammed VI of Morocco and the Getty Family. The artist has exhibited globally, in London, Paris, Berlin, Tokyo, Singapore, New York, Detroit, Miami and Los Angeles. In 2012 he was honoured in a retrospective held at the Goss-Michael Foundation in Dallas.