Current Events at the JGGThe Artists of the JGG

Carol Ross

Paintings 1988-90

May 1 - June 14, 2008


The abstract becomes tangible in nine large-scale canvases and ten preparatory drawings from the years when Carol Ross, this most uncompromising of New York artists, made the transition from painting structures of delicate geometry to sculpting objects of weight and substance.

Male---Female Black Lignum

The methodical variations and chromatic juxtapositions of Ross's multi-panel paintings reinvent the late-modernist tradition of the shaped canvas. Probing the atmospheric capacities of color to transform space, Ross creates rhythmic sequences of geometric forms that layered, project into space as if in relief. This spatial extension is achieved also through the frequent application of diagonals that, despite the apparent symmetry of the works, suggest an overriding sensation of movement.

 Arch

In Ross's sculptures, these diagonals turn into edges and axes, which structure and delineate the geometric figures. With the subsequent three-dimensional works in mind, the paintings can be taken for a series of exquisitely refined blueprints, while the preparatory drawings for diagrams of the cut out planes.

Painting On Bark Blue Diamonds

These progressive configurations of the planar and the spatial eased the artist passage into a different media. Besides presenting works of intrinsic beauty, this exhibition is conceived to explore the visual sources which lead to the nine monumental, stainless steel sculptures of Hortus Conclusus, Carol Ross's recent installation at Spazio Thetis, Arsenale Novissimo, Venice, Italy (June, 2007 - April, 2008).

Mask Red Shield
Northern-L129971
Please, contact the Janos Gat Gallery for more information about the show.