(born Northern England in 1959) “Marilyn Monroe portrait - reach out and touch faith white and rose”, on the reverse titled, signed, dated Russell Young 2009, acrylic, colour silk screen, diamond dust on canvas, 157.5 x 122 cm, border, (PS)

“Young had spent his photographic career doing portraits of celebrities. He never felt he’d captured his subject as true and as powerfully as these new works. The answers to the questions he had of himself were in fact playing out in the ‘Pig Portraits’. They attacked the nature of photography, portraiture and prickly nature of celebrity itself. Young began to use diamond dust in 2007, pressing the crystals into the enamel of the paintings. He was drawn to the opulence of the light, shimmering off the multi-faceted glass. He hung the paintings from the trees of his California garden. At night the moon shone blue on the crystals. The images were lost in the abstract flicker of light only to once again, reclaim their place. In the monochrome paintings we recognize Marilyn Crying. Then the light falls on the diamonds and the choir sings. He called them “Dirty Pretty Things” and seemed to assault the idea of even looking at pictures, turning the experience into chewing bubble gum.”

(Excerpt from: russellyoung.com/biography)