Russell Herron’s work has the extraordinary ability to make you look twice. What initially appears to be cardboard is, on closer inspection, often meticulously rendered in coloured pencil: corrugations, torn edges, folds and roughly cut shapes recreated through drawing with a trompe-l’œil attention to surface. The technical precision is remarkable, but it is only one part of what makes the work so interesting.
Russell uses cardboard not simply as a subject, but as a starting point. Across the exhibition, it becomes portrait, sculpture, art-historical reference, alter ego and, occasionally, punchline. Humour is an important part of Russell’s work. An idea can begin with a very simple proposition and, when followed through, end up somewhere quite unexpected.