As a lifelong New Yorker and street artist for over a decade, I have witnessed the city’s rapidly shifting landscape while using it as the inspiration and frame for my work. In the wake of New York's relentless expansion upwards and outwards, valuable public real estate for urban-minded artists to express themselves started to disappear. Rather than fight for space to put art on the streets, I began to take from the streets to create art that directly reflects themes of consumption, gentrification, globalization, and the ephemerality of modern culture and identity.
Playing with conventions of collage and sculpture has become the foundation of my recent work, creating art out of pervasive fashion ads, building permits, movie postings, and the like--these symbols of our ever-shortening attention spans and insatiable need for more and easily-digestible trends. I cut through and unearth layer upon layer, letting them feud among themselves in a figurative battle of one-upsmanship to become sculptural commentaries on the society from which they are gathered, a society where newer/bigger/faster/more expensive is better, where consumerism is king, and where everything, including the very facets that make it unique, is expendable.
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-Lee Russell Holin received his M.F.A. with a concentration in Drawing from New York Academy of Art. Shortly after completing his masters degree, he embarked on his street art career under the moniker Russell King, using his home town of New York and its surrounding boroughs as a frame and inspiration for his work. He experimented with site-specific video installations, sign postings, and repurposing existing structures. Holin has been recognized in publications such as the Huffington Post, New York Times, and Business Insider, and was featured as one of NYC's most prolific street artists in Yoav Litvin's book "Outdoor Gallery: New York City." -
Select Group shows:
Combined Talents, Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts; Tallahassee FLA, 8/19/19 - 9/29/19
Collage, Arts Warehouse; Delray Beach FLA, 2019
https://artswarehouse.org/events/collage
National Art League; Douglaston NY, 2019
TriBeCa Ball, New York Academy of Art; New York NY, 2019
https://nyaa.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/TBall19-PressDeck-.pdf
Made In New York, Schweinfurth Art Center; Auburn NY, 2019
http://www.schweinfurthartcenter.org/exhibits_details.cfm?id=108
Outside Inside; Patchogue NY, 2018
High Contrast, 212 Arts; New York NY, 2018
Art Beat Next Generation; London, 2016
Stroke; Munich, 2016
Surplus Candy LA; Los Angeles CA, 2016
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRgdB71OL08
Surplus Candy NY; New York NY, 2015
Take Home a Nude, Sotheby's; New York NY, 2015
Tehran to NYC/NYC to Tehran; Tehran, Iran 2014
Red Bull Curates; Brooklyn NY, 2012
Publications:
“46 of New York’s Most Prolific Street Artists in One Book.” Huffington Post, 2014 (updated 2017)
Bruner, Raisa. “A photographer embarked on a mission to document New York City’s best street art before it disappeared - here are some of his favorites.” Business Insider US, March 25, 2016
by Elie “Street Artist Russell King Wants You to Play NES on the Sidewalk.” Bowery Boogie, March 17th, 2016
“East Village Guerrilla Art.” New York Times, Real Estate, 2015
Litvin, Yoav. “Outdoor Gallery: New York City.” Ginko Press, 2014
Caroline Caldwell. “15 Street Art Terms You Should Know.” Complex.com, Aug. 15 2013
Natalie O’Neill. “Art attack! Street artist uses Park Slope sign as canvas.” Brooklyn Paper, 2011
