My friend Barbara in Los Angeles (a devoted supporter of this newsletter), recently sent me info on an artist friend of hers who draws on photographs, Christopher Russell. The work is very intriguing as it is not entirely clear what you are seeing in front of you when you look at one of Russell's images. Is it a photograph? An etching? A drawing?

On the Mark Moore Gallery's (one of my favourite LA galleries) artist page for Russell you can see a range of images, videos of the artist speaking about his work, and a pdf format of his exhibition catalogue. (After perusing this comprehensive information page, you will discover one of the reasons that the Mark Moore Gallery is on my top ten list of LA galleries). In speaking about his work, Russell clearly defines himself as a photographer, first and foremost. The drawing that he does directly on the photograph, or on the Plexiglas that rests on top of the photograph (to protect the photographic surface), is Russell's way of connecting more deeply with the Ultrachrome printed image.

A recent write-up about Russell's work can be found in Whitehot Magazine (for those of you unfamilier with this on-line art magazine it is published by Victoria native Noah Becker who now resides in New York). More on Russell's work can also be found on The Hammer at UCLA's website.

A Canadian photographer, Sarah Ann Johnston alters her photographs in a different, yet equally poetic manner. The image below called Glitter Bomb makes use of paint and glitter to create this fantastically beautiful yet ominous bomb cloud. Johnston recently did a series of work called Arctic Wonderland that questions our notions of the arctic as a place between romantic unchartered frontiers and environmetnal devastation. Johnston spoke about her work in a panel discussion in the Canadian Art sponsored event Gallery Hop Toronto. A feature in Canadian Art Magazine called 7 Lessons from Sarah Anne Johnson gives a really good overview of Johnson's ideas and processes. 

Like Russell, Johnston draws (and paints) on top of the finished photograph as a way of further engaging in the subject matter and to introduce an element of the fantastical and uncanny, leaving the viewer to question what exactly they are looking at. Both artists challenge the boundaries between photography, drawing and painting.