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Vegas - 2015 - Issue 4 - Summer - Art of the City - J.K. Russ

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L ate last year at the Cosmopolitan's P3 Studio—an open space where pass- ersby can observe acclaimed artists at work and even participate in the creation of their projects—a boy and his sister worked quietly for two hours while artist-in-residence J.K. Russ chatted with their mother. When it was time for the family to leave, as a gesture of thanks, the woman pressed into the artist's hands a sketch her daughter had produced. "She didn't speak a lot of English," says Russ, "but she asked me, in the role of a practicing artist, what advice would I give her daughter: How could she develop the drawing? And I told her, 'Think a little bigger.' Because people have sug- gested that to me before." It's advice that Russ has taken to heart. For her residency—sponsored by the Cosmopolitan in partnership w it h t he New York – ba sed A r t P roduct ion Fu nd— t he a r t ist pro - duced collaborative versions of her sig nature collages, each one exud- ing her trademark trippy sensuality, under the umbrella title "House of Paper Bi rds." Visitors cou ld con- t r ibute t hei r ow n cutout s to t he expansive walls, adding f lourishes to surreal landscapes. Like a fusion of Sa lvador Da l í a nd Georg ia O'Keeffe, feminine figures overlap w it h i mages of bi rds a nd deser t plants—beast-women roosting in a wild, arid landscape. Visitors to the show were then invited to add ele- ment s of rock or sky using images t hat Russ had r ipped f rom old National Geographic magazines. Such u nset t l i ng yet beaut i f u l work has earned Russ attention well beyond Las Vegas: In the next year, she will have shows at galleries in Houston and her native New Zealand, as well as an exhibit at Sin City Gallery on East Charleston Boulevard. Russ's residency concluded in early January and she returned to her regular studio: a spare bedroom in her apartment, located in a low-slung Downtown complex. Piles of magazines are stacked against the wall, while a jaunty blue boa (ref lecting the artist's passion for burlesque) is draped over a portrait of a long-tongued woman. Russ lives and works here with her husband, artist Matthew Couper, whose workspace is an apartment he commandeered across the stairwell, where he produces large-scale paint- ings. Dressed in paint-spattered cargo shorts, Couper explains that theirs is a typical setup for artists in Las Vegas: "Artists' loft spaces are so expen- sive to air-condition in the summer." Despite the bawdiness of her work—imagine a Playboy spread shot by H ierony mus Bosch—Russ ha s a dist inct ly K iw i modest y. She wea rs a shiny black PVC cap that would look fitting on one of Austin Powers's bombshells, yet she peers out from under its brim with endearing shy- ness. She cred it s her fat her, a n execut ive in t he tobacco indust r y, w it h spa rk i ng her i nterest i n a r t . "He was always drawing and paint- ing," she says, "and he always took us kids out on Sunday drives to sit and sketch." Russ (whose g iven na me is Joa n ne) worked for a t i me i n L ondon desig n i ng book jacket s, back when it wa s st i l l done on paper, a nd says t hat ex per ience with layouts piqued her interest in col lage. A f ter ret u r n i ng to New Zea la nd, she decided to en rol l i n art school, although by now she was somewhat older t ha n her cla ss - mates. "I remember t he f i rst day there, the others thought I was one of the tutors," she says with a laugh. She graduated in 2001 and was soon combining her fondness for poring over the bric-a-brac in thrift stores— "I love finding things other people have discarded, like old prints from the 1960s that people used to have above the mantelpiece"—with her cre- ative process, producing the color-saturated collages for which she has earned such renown. A fter meet ing a nd ma r r y ing, Russ a nd Couper spent severa l yea rs working in their home country, but Couper had a yen to experience life in the United States. He applied for a green card through the federal lot- ter y system a nd u nex pected ly won. Wit h i n si x mont hs, t he pa i r had deca mped to A mer ica , set t l i ng dow n i n L a s Vega s i n 2 010 — a jolt i ng "I just love the depictions of female sensuality. What is seductive—and how?" —J.K. Russ vegasmagazine.com  81

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