Inside the Studio with Russell Hatton: Contemporary Artist Using Automotive Paint

There is something almost hypnotic about a Russell Hatton painting. Stand in front of one and the surface refuses to stay still. Light skims across the aluminium, colour shifts and deepens, and suddenly a flash of gold appears where you hadn't noticed it before.

Russell doesn't work with traditional artists' materials. His paintings are made on aluminium using high-performance automotive paints, lacquer and, in some pieces, 22-carat champagne gold leaf. The result sits somewhere between painting, sculpture and optical illusion.

We first discovered Russell's work in a rather unexpected place: on the set of The Big Deal with Steph McGovern. During Episode 2, Claire and Aaron sourced his piece Champagne Starlight for a luxury home in Warwickshire. After the show, we got in touch with Russell ourselves, and have since had the pleasure of working with him at our Bentley and Lamborghini events.

There is something rather perfect about discovering an artist through a challenge about luxury interiors, only to find that his creative language began somewhere completely different: inside a commercial body shop.

We sat down with Russell to hear how it all began.

How Russell Hatton Became a Contemporary Artist

Before the paintings, there was a commercial body shop, where Russell spent years spray painting everything from motorbikes to 40-foot trailers. Art was always somewhere in the background, but it wasn't something he had consciously set out to pursue.

Then his wife went to university to study fine art. Russell began going along to exhibitions with her, travelling around the country and further afield, and gradually became curious about what he could do himself...
Interview with Artist Russell Hatton artowkr featured on the BBC, at a Bentley Event in the Cotsworlds

Bella: How did you first get into art, and when did you realise you wanted to pursue it seriously?

Russell: "Well, it's quite a long story, really. But it started because I had a commercial body shop business where I was using all these automotive paints.

But It wasn't until my wife went to university to study fine art that I kind of got more into it. I was always interested in art, but running a business, I didn't really have any time to do it myself.

I started messing around with these automotive paints and trying to make things that I thought I'd like on my walls and ended up creating enough work for an exhibition, which we held in Nottingham.

We rented a gallery, held a preview night and just hung all the work and invited all our friends.

People didn't know I'd been creating anything- even family didn't know I'd been making anything!

But visitors came in off the street and they were just saying, "Well, I'd like to buy this, but there's no prices on anything."

So I said, "Well, I didn't realise that people would want to buy it!"

Anyway, this lady came in on the preview and she said, "Well, if I gave you a cheque for £500, would you take it?"

And I said, "Yes."

That piece was quite a big one -180 by 90 - and it was silver and red, with the red kind of bleeding down from the top. She went on to buy two more, so she was my first collector, really. "

There is something brilliant about that beginning. No grand plan, no carefully constructed career — just a man experimenting with paint and a woman who walked into a gallery and decided she wanted one.

That first exhibition was around twenty years ago. The work has evolved enormously since then, but that instinct to experiment with materials is still at the centre of what Russell does.
Russell Hatton Champagne Starlight artwork chosen for the snooker and bar room in The Big Deal Episode 2.

Russell Hatton's Automotive Paint Technique

When Russell closed his body shop in 2010 and turned his attention fully towards art, he didn't leave his old world behind. He took it with him.

His aluminium panels are sprayed with automotive paints, using pearlescent, xyrallic and candy finishes alongside lacquer and reflective surfaces. The materials are industrial and highly engineered, yet in Russell's hands they become something surprisingly atmospheric — liquid, smoke, polished metal or a night sky.

Bella: Was the style similar to what it is now, or has it evolved over time?

Russell: "Yes, it's evolved. I think early on, because I came from industry, everything was very structured and very sort of set in its ways. It took me a long while to loosen up and be more free of the kind of constraints of using the paints to explore more with the paint chemistry.

The paints were very, very rigid in a way, very structured, a lot of very fine line masking because that's kind of what I'd do on vehicles.

But now they're much looser.

I do often go back to a structured format, like in the piece from the show, the Starlight Champagne. It's very structured in a way. The balance is there. The gold circle, it's measured proportionally. It takes up a third of the central area- theres three parts to the painting really.

It's still very rigid, but I'm using my creativity to go back to where I started, whilst trying to be cleverer with it."

That tension between precision and spontaneity is one of the things that makes the paintings so compelling. Look closely and you see the discipline; step back and the surface feels completely free.

How Light Changes Russell Hatton's Artwork

This is where photographs really don't do Russell's work justice.

We saw it with his 'Scurry Topaz Atomized' piece at one of our events. From across the room, it had one presence. Then the light caught the surface as you moved past and suddenly another layer appeared. It was the kind of artwork that quietly demanded a second look.

Bella: One of my favourite pieces is the Topaz one. When we had it at the event, the way the light shines on it in from different angles it becomes a entirely new piece. As you move around the artwork, you can then see how much depth there is there.

Russell: That's right. They really thrive with natural light, directional light, or a combination.

So often I'll visit a space to see what sort of lighting the client has got, or if it's a new build, what sort of lighting they're going to put in, because the paintings can play with the natural light. If you put a dimmer switch on them, you can kind of control the painting a little bit, so it makes it look more alive- which a lot of my clients do as well.

The paints are designed for use on cars, which are of course suitable for the outside. That's kind of where they come to life. I use that technology really within the paintings.
Scurry Topaz Atomized by Artist Russell Hatton at Lambourghini Tunbridge wells- artist featured on the BBC The Big Deal art competition series

At our Bentley and Lamborghini events, that relationship felt completely natural. Russell's paintings sat alongside high-performance cars, both sharing an obsession with finish, craftsmanship and detail.
creative process paint techniques and paintings by UK artist Russell Hatton as featured on BBC art competition series The Big Deal 2026

Inside Russell Hatton's Creative Process

There is a surprising amount of science behind the finished paintings.

Russell is constantly experimenting with how his paints react, often pushing combinations until something unexpected happens. Some experiments become paintings. Others become very expensive failures.

Bella: I guess there's almost like the science element as well. It's very much art, but the science is working with these paints, and it requires so much experimentation.

Russell: "Yeah, exactly. I end up wasting a lot of paint, which was good in the early days because I would be wasting paint that was left over from a job.

But then, when you're trying to do things a little bit differently and you're not doing the other business, you have to be a bit more creative.

I tend to buy a lot of paint from companies that may have gone bankrupt. The paints are very expensive, and I waste a lot of paint just trying to get something else to work.

But I have to get creative, to keep exploring- there's so many different nuances.

I've got some pigments that you can mix together and they get a completely bizarre reaction. They don't follow the normal colour wheel, so I can get these amazing golds from mixing colours. If I showed them to you, you'd say, "Well, that's never going to make that colour."

But that's because it's the chemistry of the paints."

This is perhaps the most fascinating part of Russell's process. He isn't simply reproducing a finish he already knows works. He is constantly asking what else the materials can do.

There is a real sense of experimentation behind the luxury finish of the final paintings .

What Does Art Mean to Russell Hatton?

For all the talk of automotive paint, gold leaf and chemistry, there is a much simpler reason Russell continues to make art: he needs to create.

Bella: What does art mean to you? What does it do for you?

Russell: "Art for me is a way of life. I don't feel it's just something that's put on a wall.

I've never considered myself an artist. I think I'm more of a creative.

I like to make things. I like to see integrity within things.

I don't really look at a lot of art per se. If I go to an art fair, I generally don't look at that much art. I don't really want to be influenced by what other people are doing. So I try to keep my ideas original.

And art is a feeling. I think it's almost like a healing condition for me. So if I'm not in the studio, I'm not really very happy. I have to be in there creating stuff to feel like I'm calm and connected."

For someone whose work can feel so polished and extravagant, there is something wonderfully simple about this. Behind the reflective surfaces and champagne gold is someone who simply feels better when he is making something.

When Artwork Becomes Part of a Family

One of our favourite moments came when Russell told us about a collector who commissioned one of his large green atomised pieces back in 2010.

The collector installed it in his kitchen. Years later, Russell bumped into him at an art fair and was shown something on his phone: photographs taken every Christmas in front of the painting.

Russell: "He showed on his phone, how every Christmas the children had grown in front of it. There were 8/9 when the artwork was first installed and now they are adults- grown up and working.

And I just thought, how lovely is this- that my artwork is actually part of the family and their memories. "

This is what can happen when a piece of art leaves the studio. It stops being simply a painting and starts becoming part of someone's life.

The artwork stays almost exactly as it was.

Everything around it changes.
Green luxury Artwork by artist Russell Hatton- as featured on BBC art competition tv series The Big Deal 2026. Lambourghini Art

Russell Hatton's Contemporary Abstract Artwork

Today, Russell estimates that around 1,000 of his artworks are in private collections. He works on multiple pieces simultaneously, with a commissioned artwork typically taking around six weeks from start to finish.

He exhibits internationally and works with collectors and clients across the UK and Europe, and is now beginning to explore sculpture — a natural next step for an artist so fascinated by material, surface and form.

What began with automotive paint has become an incredibly distinctive visual language. Aluminium becomes a canvas. Automotive finishes become colour. Gold becomes light.

And that is ultimately what keeps drawing us back to Russell's work. The paintings are bold, tactile and impossible to ignore, but underneath all of that is genuine curiosity.

They catch your eye from across the room, but reward you for getting closer. The surface changes. The light moves. Something you hadn't noticed suddenly comes forward.

It doesn't simply sit in an interior: It becomes part of it.

Looking for Russell Hatton Artwork?

We don't currently have Russell Hatton's work listed in our online collection, but we are very happy to take enquiries. If you're a collector, interior designer or private client looking for a statement piece, interested in a Russell Hatton commission, or simply want to know more about his available work, get in touch with Bella + Ollie Art and we'll be happy to help.

Because the best artwork isn't always the piece that fills the biggest wall. It's the one you keep noticing- and keep discovering - long after you first brought it home.

 

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