Durango artist Joan Russell’s new work employs an assemblage of found papers, and painted rice papers brought together through a process of chance and manipulation. With  an abstract style, Russell’s works are a compositional play with ideas of discordance, and harmony within the context of time and history. Russell has an MFA in fine arts from the University of Colorado and has been exhibiting her paintings and installations in Durango and Telluride. 

“For this project my goal was to assimilate diversity, weaving it to make sense as a whole. My process is defined by this goal. If myself, as the “artist”, is interwoven as a part of this universe, then I must treat my process “selflessly”. For my will cannot force itself but must work in tandem with a natural progression. This means doing the dance with the accidental, bringing forth surprise and delight out of form and abandon. Moving in tandem with the organic nature of the physical, respecting gravity and using materials “at hand”.  It is a responsiveness on my part to the will of the materials. Freedom, frozen in time, in search of beauty.” – Joan Russell