Virginia Russell was born in 1943 in Auckland, New Zealand, and grew up in Rotoura and Te Kopuru before undertaking her architecture training in Auckland. Practising architecture since 1972, Russell arrived in Sydney in 1979, where she eventually established Virginia Russell and Associates in 1991. Russell relocated to Brisbane in 2006.
In the 1970s while still in New Zealand Russell began photography, teaching herself black and white processing. In the 1980s, having arrived in Sydney, she built on these skills by enrolling in a series of workshops at the Australian Centre for Photography in Paddington.
A long career in the built environment inevitably resulted in photographic images of buildings featuring as subject or backdrop. In addition to the early modernist formalist preference for the architectural detail that draws attention to form, texture and light, Russell’s images also engage with social documentary traditions that alert the viewer to human interactions within the urban landscape. She is interested in odd details that can inject unexpected life into her otherwise highly compositional images.
Russell did not exhibit, however, until 2004 when a fellow artist, friend Glenda Jones, encouraged her to show 'Grey Lynn to Havana’ at the James Harvey Gallery in Clovelly, Sydney. These were travel photographs from a world trip that ranged from Grey Lynn, a suburb in Auckland, to Havana, Cuba. They were also her first digital colour photographs. Russell shortly went on to contribute to two exhibitions, 'Georgian Eyes’ at the Washhouse Gallery, Rozelle, and 'In the Soul of the Architect’, Mary Place Gallery, Paddington. Significantly, although both these latter galleries host a wide range of exhibitions they also have strong ties to the Sydney architecture community; Washhouse Gallery being the venue for regular meetings of IWAN (Inner West Architecture Network), and Mary Place Gallery being a space directed by architect and artist, Julius Bokor.
In 2006 Russell developed an interest in photographing still lifes as well as capturing distinctive structures and buildings from the Brisbane region.
- Writers:
- Fishburn, Alexandra J.
De Lorenzo, Catherine
- Date written:
- 2008
- Last updated:
- 2009
