I am currently enrolled in the Masters program in the College of Design at North Carolina State University. The focus of my degree is in 3d animation and New Media. Prior to returning to school I worked as a designer and a teacher in North Carolina. In 2008 I was a guest lecturer in the Communications Department at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. I taught classes in Animation and Interactive Media. I have also taught classes in graphic design, web animation and digital photography at the School of Communication Arts in Raleigh.

In addition to my teaching experience I have worked as a production artist and a freelance designer throughout the Triangle. Some of my clients include LG, DHL, the Emmy award winning film maker Josh Lowell, Elements Design Group and Train of Thought Marketing. The projects range from print collateral and art direction to interactive training websites.

As an independent artist and animator my work has been featured in galleries in Raleigh, Durham and Greensboro. My animations have been featured on many online video collections which include Cracked.com, MyToons.com, ChannelFrederator.com and NoFatClips.com.

Education

M.A.D., Art and Design (currently enrolled)
North Carolina State University

M.E.D., Mathematics Education (1996)
Rutgers University

B.S., Applied Sciences in Engineering (1994)
Rutgers University

Honors

Member, Phi Kappa Phi.
Awarded, Pumpkin King Scholarship (2008) - North Carolina State College of Design

Projects

Ant Farm 1969-71: Early Underground Adventures with Space, Land, and Time
I worked on the animations for the documentary Ant Farm 1969-71 produced and edited by Laura Harrison. The film is a 30- minute version of what will be a feature length documentary about the renegade 1970s architecture collective most recognized for the iconic land-art piece, Cadillac Ranch. The animations were created from the sketchbooks that one of the key players of the collective kept during his years with the Ant Farm.

Notes
This self produced animation was created aftera year as a lecturer at UNC Chapel Hill. It combines three different forms of animation into one seemless narrative: stop motion, frame by frame, and pixilation. Notes won the Faculty Feature Categoy “2008 GOVERNOR’S CHALLENGE PODCAST TOURNAMENT” hosted by University of Tennessee-Martin.

Trials of Obama
This four piece series imagines Presdent Barak Obama as four tragic greek heros: Icarus, Prometheus, Hercules and Atlas. They were produced in the weeks leading up to his inauguration in 2009. The idea behind each mixed media piece was to celebrate this great moment in american history, but also to temper our desire to lift our heros up too high. The piece was also featured in the "Independent Weekly." They had this to say about it: "No less ambivalent, but more clear, are four smallish cartoons by Marc Russo that depict a youthful, Boondocks-ian Obama in a variety of tragic Greek myths. In one, he's shown as Atlas, shouldering the weight of America; in another, he's Icarus flying dangerously close to the sun. My favorite of the quartet, which carries the same mystery as its mythological source, is an ominous image of Obama as Prometheus, strapped to the dome of the Capitol, with his liver ripped out by a nearby bird. It's deceptively macabre and unsettling, and unlike other works in the show, it recognizes that the work has only begun, and that it is likely to be painful."

Self Portrait
This mixed media piece was part of the juried show "Pulp" at the Visual Art Exchange in Raleigh during March 2009.