Paintings that hold presence. Abstract expressionist work by Cheryl Russell.
Houston, Texas — Silver Street Studios, Sawyer Yards
Life leaves its mark on everything — on us, on the work. My paintings are built the same way you are: layer by layer, built on everything that came before — not haunted by it. Transformed by it.
This isn’t art you glance at on your way to the kitchen. It asks you to stop. To actually look. To let yourself feel something you might not be able to name right away — and discover something about yourself. If you’re not that kind of person, no harm done. But if you are — you’re going to find something here that was made for you.
Selected Works
as seen in
Meet Cheryl Russell
I’ve spent most of my life being told who I should be — nice, pleasant, safe, palatable.
I’ve spent decades unlearning that. And when I finally stopped being nice and started being true, my paintings came alive. There’s more to that story.
And if you’re the kind of person who just felt something reading that — I think you’ll want to hear it.
Art you live alongside
A collector wrote to me recently about one of my paintings. He described a figure on the left side, moving toward a fissure in the rock face — a portal, maybe, from one phase of life to another. Then he said: “Maybe I see that because I’m moving toward retirement and more freedom to be me.”
He wasn’t describing my painting. He was describing himself.
That’s what my work does. It doesn’t tell you what to see. It holds space for what you bring to it — your grief, your transitions, your becoming. The painting stays the same. You don’t. And every time you return to it, you find something different because you are something different.
This is art you live alongside.
Come inside the studio.
Studio Insiders get first access, private invitations, and a direct line to what I’m making — and why.
- Invitations to private studio events, exhibitions, open studio days
- First looks at new work
- Behind the scenes in the studio
- On what it means to live with art
- Studio reflections — what’s working, what’s not, what I’m learning