Russell Young's 'For Your Eyes Only' at the White Room Gallery

Currently on view at The White Room Gallery in East Hampton is “For Your Eyes Only,” an intriguing collection of paintings by Russell Young, a British-American artist with an eye for creativity and an intriguing past of his own.

Young is perhaps best known for his giant portraits of iconic celebrity figures. Some are living, some are dead, but all of them are idols who have been revered for their impact on society and pop culture within the last century. In his artwork, Young combines painting and silk screening with photography. In the final step of his process, the works are infused with flecks of diamond dust, which gives them a sparkling, ethereal quality.

Sometimes, the photographs used in his work are his own — as is the case for his paintings of Kate Moss and Kendrick Lamar. But often, the initial images were taken decades ago by someone else, which allows Young to bring something totally new and fresh to the interpretation. The show in East Hampton opened with a reception on August 17 and runs through September 8. It features paintings of icons like Marilyn Monroe, Bridget Bardot, Elizabeth Taylor, Mick Jagger and David Bowie.

“As a photographer, sometime it takes 30 seconds, sometimes it takes a week to take a photo — you’re always questioning your choices,” Young explained. “But when using someone else’s photo, you look at it with an entirely different perspective.

“You’re looking through someone else’s eyes.”

Young began life in York in northern England and he came to his career in art through an unusual series of circumstances and fortuitous choices. Born in 1959 to a 14-year-old mother, he was placed immediately in foster care and was then sent to a nunnery before being adopted by the time he turned one.

“Since the age of three or four, I’ve been drawing scary trees, so I’ve always painted, loved drawing, life drawing, always just making marks I guess,” said Young.

Eager to escape the factory towns of his native Yorkshire, when he was 15, Young lied about his age in order to enroll in art college two years before he was eligible. By the time he turned 17, he was done with school and onto his next venture — music.

“I was in a band in college, we had a nice record deal,” said Young. While driving up the motorway on our way to London, I said ‘I don’t want to sign this.’

“Before graduation, I had already moved to London to live on a cousin’s couch and occasionally ended up homeless, I was 17 or 18,” he said. “I decided I wanted to be on the other side of the camera, doing fine art photography and graphic design.”

Young was fortunate to land a stint as a photo assistant to Greek photographer Christos Raftopoulos, who provided him with a bit of stability and the direction that he lacked.

“I don’t know how, but I knew I shouldn’t go out on my own,” said Young. “Christos was amazing. He taught me to love opera, told me what books to read and how to make great salad dressing. I had instinct and something inside of me, so I started taking photographs in my spare time. I ended up going out on my own supported by Christos’ mentorship.

“I worked 18 hours a day for three to four years solid, no breaks, no partying. I was developing that foundation and that burst of time has helped me until today,” he explained. “I learned how to see this magic little thing in a huge photo, hone in on it and crop it. I also learned about lighting. That helped with my being creative.”

While he still found himself occasionally homeless during this period, Young was able to photograph the early gigs of bands like Bauhaus, R.E.M. and The Smiths. Photoshoots for magazines followed, and eventually, he scored his first album cover — George Michael’s 1986 record “Faith.”

“I did most of the great photos you’ve seen of him,” said Young. “I had a good color sensitivity. I see color differently than anyone else on the planet.”

Color is, indeed, a very important aspect of Young’s work, and he describes how, not long ago, he traveled to Florence, Italy to meet up with a man to mix various pigments for his work.

“He has a supply shop for artists that goes back generations in his family — to pre-Renaissance times and the pigments that went into the Sistine Chapel,” explained Young, who is always on the lookout for new pigment sources. “It’s a visual sort of intellectual conversation. There are pigments in some of my pinks that don’t exist anymore — because they are sourced from things that don’t exist anymore. But he’ll sell me a small box.”

The final touch for Young’s works on view in East Hampton are what he calls “diamond dust” — individually applied crystals that are pressed into the surface of the paintings which make them sparkle.

“I was looking for this luxurious, sculptural veil,” Young explained. “It took several years to find that and refine it.”

It’s an effect that is quite moving, particularly in his “Marilyn Crying” series, which is based on a tightly cropped photograph of the starlet in tears.

“In it, Marilyn is crying and it’s only maybe 10 percent of the photograph,” Young explained. “She was coming out of the courtroom during her divorce from Joe DiMaggio, she’s in a car and there are people behind her.

“I honed in on that portion of it,” he added. “She’s beautiful, but sobbing at the same time. It encapsulated the essence of Marilyn.”

In order to secure that particular image, Young said he looked at 5,000 photographs of Monroe and worked with her estate as well as various photographers. Also on view in this show is a selection of paintings of famous mugshots — including Sid Vicious of the “Sex Pistols,” David Bowie and Jimi Hendrix.

“I also did the Johnny Cash mugshot,” he said. “I knew that this police department had it — I think it was in El Paso. I asked if I could have a copy of it. They said that it would be mine to use if I sent a self-addressed stamped envelope and $5. And it came in the mail.”

Young notes that the mugshot series began as a reaction to his former career when, as he put it, “I got paid ridiculous amount of money to make them look better than they did, handsome or whatever.”

“The mugshots intrigued me. It’s someone caught in one second in a police click,” noted Young, who added that when David Bowie was arrested in Rochester, N.Y. in 1976, he was “looking like shit and went back the next day and had his mugshot taken.”

He added that the only mugshot in his series that is not real is the one he has of Elvis Presley.

“He was visiting Nixon in the White House. The DEA took the shot.”

It would seem that Russell Young’s instincts have paid off. Though he got off to a rough start in life, he is doing just fine in his career as an artist. His work has been shown in galleries around the world and noteworthy collectors include Barack Obama, Brad Pitt, David Bowie, Aby Rosen and others. Not bad for a kid from York.

The White Room Gallery is at 3 Railroad Avenue in East Hampton. For more information call 631-237-1481 or visit thewhiteroom.gallery.