Cecilia Russell
Cecilia Russell is a painter and graphic artist who lives in the Bay of Islands.
She has held a number of solo and joint shows in New Zealand and USA, as well as having works held in public and private collections and undertaking public commissions.
Cecilia trained as a graphic designer and an art teacher using these skills in a career spanning the areas of illustration, graphic arts, educational TV, and tertiary education.
More recently she has specialised in painting and drawing, rendering the human form in nude studies and portraiture.
Her more recent work deals with notions of the female gaze, role playing, viewpoint and values.
Cecilia has range of limited edition prints including the Playing Queens series:“ ‘Playing’, of course, refers to the game of cards,
to myself playing and being photoshop queen,
the subjects playing at being queens,
and us queens paying homage to the queen of Art Deco-style painting,
Tamara Lempicka (1898-1980).
One may read in my work, and in Tamara’s, a dichotomy between
empowerment and vulnerability ...
a certain detachment, and definitely a distraction with the decorative...
...and the gaze.”
