COLOGNE.- Galerie Karsten Greve Cologne announces The Sea Around Us, a new solo exhibition by Georgia Russell. Opening on the occasion of this year’s DC Open Galleries, the exhibition presents a new body of work including paintings, works on paper, and painterly installations. In stylistic continuity with her distinctive technique of painting with a scalpel, Georgia Russell engages with contemporary social themes in her latest pieces. Combining organza, canvas and paper for the first time, she creates multilayered compositions that reflect the diversity and chaotic dynamism of our present time.

The title relates to a general feeling of our time – the sensation of “being at sea.” The flood of events unfolding at a rapid pace poses a challenge both to individuals and to society as a whole. Russell compares to the experience of a sea storm, in which up and down are turned around like in a swirl of waves.

The Sea Around Us derives from the eponymous prize-winning book by American biologist Rachel Carson, first published in 1951. The author therein describes both the science and the wonders of the ocean in a manner often referred to as "poetic," fusing fact and fiction. In a similarly poetic and observant perspective, Georgia Russell explores how landscape, and the sea in particular, is affected by humans and envisions scenarios of a potential “end of nature.” Amidst turbulence and immediacy, the beauty and mystery of the natural world are simultaneously and continuously evoked. Like Claude Monet painting the London smog at the end of the 19th century, Russell contemplates present-day pollution and overproduction through aesthetic means.

Georgia Russell’s artistic practice is in a state of continuous flow - a reciprocal cycle of transformation. From the fabric remnants left behind during the creation of her paintings, she constructs fascinating assemblages. Without the use of fixative sprays or aerosols, these forms appear to float weightlessly in space, in constant motion. In a similar way, Russell collects excess paint using large sponges, transforming what might first seem like a by-product into new, monumental works on canvas and paper. By reintegrating what is seemingly superfluous into her creative process, she establishes a cycle in which color is free to unfold, mix, and interconnect. This deliberate openness - embracing flow, chance, and self-determined movement - imbues Russell’s practice with a holistic dimension and subtly reflects her moral commitment.

The works in The Sea Around Us possess a watery quality: diffused and diluted colors, often in blue. Both the palette and the textures evoke marine plants and underwater world. A large-scale paravent marks the beginning of the exhibition. This installation-like piece creates a physical, immersive experience. The flexible structure of the panels and the intricate cut patterns conjure associations with aquatic flora, fish, and the sensation of being surrounded by water. While some parts of the screen appear soft and flowing, others feel rough and tense—hinting at the ambivalent relationship between humans and water. It fascinates as a life-giving element, yet it can also evoke uncertainty and unease.

The structure of the paravent originates in an artist residency that Georgia Russell held at Chauny in France, in collaboration with the Fonds Régional d’Art Contemporain Picardie in spring 2025. The geometrically framed wooden structure - left in its natural state and sturdy - acts as a rigid boundary that encloses the dynamic inner world without taming it. Within this tension between outer limits and inner life, a fragile (dis)order unfolds, spreading, intertwining, and resisting. The folding screen does more than separate; it marks an in-between space. The sea is not only a motif but a state of being - permeable, expanding, connecting. It draws boundaries and overcomes them simultaneously

As she navigates these unknown waters, Georgia Russell remains to the distinctive tension at her oeuvre - the dialogue between lightness and structure, between permeable materials and the interplay of fluid and rigid forms. Her current works have emerged through an immediate, gestural process, driven by instinctive and spontaneous movement. Russell allows her pieces to grow organically from the moment - raw yet precise in expression. Formerly regular cut patterns give way to expansive voids; colors sometimes clash intensely, and the various materials - organza, canvas, and paper - are combined intuitively. These works reveal an artist who does not hold back but freely expresses herself through material.

From early on, Russell has explored the question: What makes an image seem alive? From protruding and cut-out parts, she transforms the painting into an object with a three-dimensional character. Russell’s works are characterized by the vivid and intense interplay of rhythm, color and material, creating a dialogue with their surroundings through overlapping layers and emerging shadows. The Sea Around Us presents a multifaceted body of work that is both powerful and sensitive - a play of tension and lightness that poetically connects visual and intellectual dimensions.

Georgia Russell was born in 1974 in Elgin, Scotland. She studied Fine Art at the Gray’s School of Art in Aberdeen and subsequently earned a Master’s degree at the Royal College of Art in London. In 2000, she moved to Paris on a scholarship from the Royal College of Art. Russell has an extensive international presence with solo and group exhibitions at institutions including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, the Museum of Arts and Design in New York, and the Bellevue Arts Museum in Washington D.C.

In 2014, she was “Artist of the Year” by Art Basel. The following year, the Het Noordbrabants Museum (Raenschdael Foundation) in Den Bosch, Netherlands, dedicated a solo exhibition to her work. In 2016, her works were shown at the Bayer Cultural Foundation in Leverkusen and the Museum Pfalzgalerie in Kaiserslautern. She was the winner of the 2020 edition of “Women to Watch / Paper Routes” at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington D.C.

Russell’s works are held in numerous international private collections as well as renowned public institutions, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and the Museum Pfalzgalerie Kaiserslautern. Her work is also part of the Pierre Bergé Collection in Paris, the Ruinart Collection in Reims, the E.ON Art Collection in Essen, Bayer Kultur in Leverkusen, and the Pohl Collection in Marburg.

Georgia Russell lives and works in Méru, Picardie, France. Galerie Karsten Greve has represented the artist since 2010.