Russell Baron is an accomplished sculptor who began his professional career
in Western Canada as a commissioned portrait painter in 1982. A providential
twist of fate in 1985 saw the realization of a boyhood passion for sculpting
when he was commissioned by a prominent Saskatoon businesswoman to render
a sculpture for her son's Albertan resort. Russell continued to hone and develop his
skill as a sculptor in the faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Saskatchewan
in Saskatoon. In 1992, he graduated with Distinction winning
the University Medal of Fine Arts for his installation entitled, "Skeletons in the Closet."
This success was the springboard for a budding prolific international career.
His unique style and approach to image making has earned him
a full-time professional career as a free-lance artist
with demand for his work across Canada, the United States and Europe.
His prairie roots in Saskatchewan are the primary influence in his work. It was there
that he nurtured a great love of nature.
He says, "It was a profound spiritual experience of attunement, to the rhythms
and cycles of life in that unique part of the world. It is the core
of my artistic expression today." In his artistic process he draws on science, mythology
and archaeology to temper the organic forms of his subject matter.
Russell works primarily with bronze and terra cotta—primal earth materials that
embody the four primordial elements in the sculptural process.
"It links me to the ancestors. The process has changed very little from ancient times
and working with these materials binds me to a living heritage of
ritual, function and beauty for beauty's sake."
Russell's work can be described as inspirational, sobering, dynamic, introspective,
elemental and thought provoking. The depth he conveys in human emotion
in his figurative pieces is the result of his interest in sociology and psychology.
He infuses his forms with this knowledge so that the gesture conveys a complexity
in a manner that is gracefully subtle and at times visceral and arresting.
"My conviction as an artist is to contribute to the healing of the Earth
by offering an expression that conveys with reverence
that all life forms are a mirror of the divine, that we all share one womb."
Russell currently resides in rural Ottawa, Ontario Canada
and works fulltime as a freelance professional.
