MADDOX IN THE NORTH

25 - 26 November 2023

Cheshire, Manchester, UK

It is often those who are born without a history who feel the most compelled to explore it. This is one explanation for the artist Russell Young’s obsession with the American Southwest, and California in particular. Adopted at a young age, his knowledge of his ancestry is vague. Yet rather than dwelling on this fact, it has empowered Young to create a career, an identity and a home on the California coast, and evolve as an artist without obstacles to become the pre-eminent interpreter of images in American film and music history.

For the first time, Maddox is opening a pop up gallery in Cheshire for ‘Dreamland’, Young’s debut solo exhibition in the North of England. The show, hosted at the Overfinch showroom in Knutsford, will introduce guests to the British-American artist whose portraits present a glittering vision of celebrity. Dusted in diamonds to enhance their aesthetic perfection, it is an opportunity to view these larger-than-life works of art up close and even meet the artist, who is travelling to Cheshire for the opening.

When Young discovers images that draw him in, he devours them, appropriates them, alters them, colours them, translates them and transforms them to such an extent that they become his. Depicted in the sun-drenched colours of California, his art is hand-pulled on canvas or linen using a Warholian silkscreen printing technique, with the artist mixing the paints himself from pigments he has gathered from all over the world. Where there are a series of impressions of a given work, each is a unique piece, with the quality and quantity of the layers of paint, and the application of diamond dust, differing for every impression.

Open days on Saturday 25th and Sunday 26th November are a unique opportunity to discover key artworks from the show in advance of ‘Dreamland’ opening at our brand-new gallery space in Mayfair, London, including previously unseen works featuring Brigitte Bardot and Jimi Hendrix. They are joined by a series of imposing new protagonists: The Beatles, Mick Jagger and Kate Moss, captured at the height of their fame. Now that the American Dream, which was sold so beautifully to us, has been exposed as a sham, Young’s introduction of a new cast of British heroes and heroines is both timely and – the artist was born in Yorkshire – very close to home.

In partnership with Gusbourne and Overfinch.