Traintings
works by RusseLl Robinson
October (in the library)
Opening reception October 3rd, 5-8Pm
Statement -
The vast majority of what I choose to paint and draw are subjects that catch my eye in day-to-day life. Living in a city with multiple railroad lines running through it and a major train yard, making a painting of a train was likely inevitable. I painted the first Trainting (train painting) in February of 2025 and have been adding to this series since then. Once the prep work of painting the background and the actual train car is complete, I am faced with an entirely new blank canvas: the side of the train car.
My sketchbooks are chaotic free-for-alls with doodles and the detritus that rattles around my empty little noggin crammed into every available surface. When I sit down in front of a canvas to use up paints and materials, I feel pressure to create something serious and with substance to it. The reason that I love Traintings and plan to continue the series in perpetuity is because when I am faced with the blank side of a train car, conscious and unconscious barriers in my mind come crumbling down. I suddenly give myself permission to just paint all the weird crap, nonsensical phrases and words, cartoon characters, tags I come up with, symbols, niche jokes, stuff I see, things I hear, anything, everything. The meat and taters of tagging freights is getting up, being seen, and having a recognizable name or style that acts as a unifying thread between all of your work. With Traintings, this unifying thread is the series itself. There is no need to revisit the same messages or imagery, every train car is a fresh start where I can experiment and try something new.
About the Artist -
Russel Robinson was born in Macon, Georgia in 1997 and raised near Marshallville, about 100 miles south of Atlanta. After graduating high school, he enlisted as an air traffic controller in the Marine Corps. Following the conclusion of this five year odyssey, Russell lived in Oregon and wandered around the west for two years before unintentionally reviving his interest in art that he’d thought had died quietly at some point during his enlistment. This seven year sojourn from the south was concluded with a move to Tennessee.
Living with his wife and dog, Russell is pursuing a bachelor of fine arts in painting and drawing at the University of Tennessee -Chattanooga.
Statement -
There are certain scenes and subjects I’ve stumbled across during my short time on earth that I feel an overwhelming compulsion to attempt to capture with a brush, pencil, pen, or charcoal. Not necessarily to document, as a camera can accomplish this with far less time and effort, but to emphasize, explore, and unpack the bizarre scene in front of me. This seething conglomeration of artistically inspiring subjects is as relentless as the passage of time. Where once there was a vast chasm in my soul where the question “What should I draw?” reverberated against the emptiness, there is now a bed of nutrient-rich soil, bursting with the fruits of tantalizing subjects. They yearn for the immortality that the brush offers, crying out to be selected before they wither upon the vine and are turned under the earth to feed the next crop of unique and wondrous scenes. My stockpile of reference photos I’ve taken of future painting material grows faster than I can capture them on paper and shows no sign of slowing down, especially as the landscape in these United States grows ever more tumultuous by the day. Through my artwork I am constantly asking the same questions: What do I love about my home? What do I despise about it? What is new and different about it? And what hasn’t changed at all since I was knee-high to a grasshopper?