Jim Russell

Jim Russell produces images that are familiar and puzzling. Originating from common sources such as documentary and social media, personal, national and international archives, the works resonate because of their incompleteness; they hang in suspension as fragmented film stills suggesting partial narratives that can only be completed by the engagement of the viewer. To do this, viewers must draw upon their own positionality (informed by experiences of historical and contemporary media, and social, cultural and political systems) to resolve the work.

Human is a larger-than-life image of an unknown female gaze. Derived from Russell’s Peacemaker series and scaled to fit within the dimensions of the assemblage storefront window, the eyes survey the street with a melancholic stare that refuses any single resolution.

Russell’s works arise from a faith in the unity of humanity and a faith in modernist ideas of progress. Russell writes: “The connective tissue of unity works with and against the interests of the individual who must answer to both unpredictable human emotions and the human and non-human community, making the promises of modernism difficult at best…”. Russells’ paintings deliberately hold this contradiction in tension to explore how both are deeply human and imperfect.

– Simone Jones, 2025

Further Research into Narrative Construction and Peacemaking

The Superimage

My Research will continue from the inception of a story to understanding the limits of our capacity for narrative complexity by studying the interactions between images in a grid format – what I call a Superimage.

When more than one image is presented in close proximity, a Superimage emerges because the two images cross pollinate and cause connections, to create meaning that neither had, perhaps the origin point of a new story.  Peacemaker combines several images in an effort to expand the narrative that I have started with each image. When the images are combined, story-making expands exponentially.

The Superimage relies on a grid format; a perfectly democratic organizing form composed of equivalent units that extend to infinity along its two axes. The grid format is a vessel of cohesion, stability and control. Once a single grid square is populated with an image, relational energy is ignited between it and the surrounding squares. As more squares are populated connections and coalescences inevitably form. The new coalescent forms are then described, and the description or story becomes a meaning unit that may be agreed upon between multiple observing parties. Once agreed upon and repeated, meaning is assumed to be present by virtue of repetition, and a community can be built.

The Superimage is a story engine that demands ceaseless exploration, requiring energy and faith. It is a discovery tool used to find the patterns and coalescences that lead to important story creation. The individual images suggest a decisive moment, a part of a larger story – something that has or might happen, held in tension by the viewer.

The difficult energy of holding and interpreting a Superimage is the same as holding disparate points of view, the essence of peacekeeping. By holding different interpretations without resolution, we experience a type of faith, opening the door for communication, community and spiritual expansion. Peacekeeping is an energetic, generous, and radical creative act.

– Jim Russell, 2025

Human
November 7 – December 11, 2025
2015 Dundas Street West

For more information:
Website: jrussell.ca